When installing an app or signing up for an online service, consumers are confronted with page after page of confusing legalese known as Terms of Service, Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policies. Carnegie Mellon researchers did a study that estimated reading all of the privacy policies an average Internet user encounters in a year would take 76 work days. It is no wonder that many users simply click “I agree” without reading the terms.
Although reading every word can be mind-numbing, there is important information in those documents regarding issues such as what data will be collected and how that data will be used. For example, players who logged in to the popular Pokémon Go app using a Google ID in the first days after the app’s release granted the game developer Niantic full access to everything in their Google accounts. That problem has been remedied, but there are still many questions surrounding data collection and storage in Pokémon Go and many other apps.
In a London experiment offering free Wi-Fi, users agreed to “assign their first born child to [the Wi-Fi provider] for the duration of eternity.” F-Secure, the security firm behind the experiment, says that it has no plans to enforce the clause. “Our legal advisor Mark Deem points out that – while terms and conditions are legally binding – it is contrary to public policy to sell children in return for free services, so the clause would not be enforceable in a court of law.” Although this was a tongue-in-cheek experiment, it highlights the very real problem of users agreeing to terms they have not read.
While acknowledging that it is not realistic to expect that we will all read every one of the more than 20,000 words of the iTunes Terms and Conditions before downloading a $.99 song, Lifehacker suggests a quick way to review these legally-binding contracts before clicking on “I agree.” They recommend looking for five important conditions:
- Are there sections written in ALL CAPS?
- Will your information be shared with third parties?
- Can you opt out of having your information shared?
- Does the agreement require arbitration, where you give up your rights to sue?
- Are there waivers or releases that grant the company the ability to use your content or information?
A simple way to find these sections of the agreement is to do a quick scan for anything written in all caps, then search (using Ctrl+F) for the terms:
- Third parties and affiliates
- Opt-out
- Arbitration
- Waive or waiver
Once you have reviewed the provisions that are important to you, you can decide if you wish to agree to the terms. Unfortunately, this is not a negotiation. If you do not agree to the terms and conditions for a website, app, program or product, you may not use it. Even though you cannot change the terms, it is important to know what you are signing up for before you click, “I agree.”
