TOS Agreements Require Giving Up First Born -- and Users Gladly Consent

An anonymous reader shares an Ars Technica report: A recent study concludes what everybody already knows: nobody reads the lengthy terms of service and privacy policies that bombard Internet users every day. Nobody understands them. They're too long, and they often don't make sense. A study out this month made the point all too clear. Most of the 543 university students involved in the analysis didn't bother to read the terms of service before signing up for a fake social networking site called "NameDrop" that the students believed was real. Those who did glossed over important clauses. The terms of service required them to give up their first born, and if they don't yet have one, they get until 2050 to do so. The privacy policy said that their data would be given to the NSA and employers. Of the few participants who read those clauses, they signed up for the service anyway. "This brings us to the biggest lie on the Internet, which anecdotally, is known as 'I agree to these terms and conditions,'" the study found. The paper is called "The biggest lie on the Internet: Ignoring the privacy policies and terms of service policies of social networking services".This reminds me of a similar thing F-Secure security firm did in 2014. It asked London residents to give them their first child in exchange of free Wi-Fi access. The company, for the record, didn't collect any children.

Comments

Law and Equity

[duckintheface]

What folks don't realize is that US courts consider "law and equity". That is, the court rules both on the fine legal points established by precedence AND also on what is fair. Most courts would say that the users did NOT consent to giving up their first born because they were not aware the term was there. And you can't consent to what you don't know. This would certainly be the case here because the offending clause was hidden in the fine print. And that is not "fair". So a ruling in equity would be in favor of the users.

Nobody reads that shit

[presidenteloco]

And sooner or later, a sensible judge will throw the terms of such a "click here" agreement out in an important case, with a ruling that states "everybody knows that nobody reads that shit" therefore it's invalid because it was not effectively communicated. This is valid legal reasoning because the context is that people are bombarded by impractically large numbers of these things in their everyday use of internet services. It is reasonable to infer that people will routinely start ignoring the fine print.

Oh, and while we're on the subject of fine print, I'm hoping for the first ruling that says along the lines of "The biggest demographic; people over 50, can't read that shit. It's too small. Therefore it is invalid. Bam. Case closed."

I Am Not A Lawyer But I Play One On The Internet

Re:South Park episode

[JoeMerchant]

Back in the 1990s, we didn't have these things. AT&T raised my long distance rates by a factor of 300% from one bill to the next, I called them and told them that I never signed a term or condition that allowed such unilateral negotiations, I dispute and refuse to pay the bill until you correct it.

Some years later, they sent me an updated terms and conditions that included a "may revise, at our sole discretion, from time to time with notice to be given to you on our website, your payment of your bill constitutes acceptance of the revised terms." So, of course, I never paid another AT&T bill again.

Sorry guys, I guess I started it.