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Ask HN: Why did Microsoft, Meta, and PayPal update their ToS today?

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41–50 of 191 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why did Microsoft, Meta, and PayPal update their ToS today?

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VisualPing already does this: https://visualping.io/blog/how-to-monitor-changes-in-terms-a... Docacracy did it a decade ago, but closed shop. The problem isn’t the tech — it’s coming up with a business model that pays for the system and upkeep. As much as people give lip service about privacy, they sure don’t throw money at lobbying efforts that protect their rights in those areas.

Why does such a thing need to be a business to begin with? Just host a github or expose this functionality on wikipedia.

No one said it had to be a business. They were making the point that its hard to keep something like that running and maintained for free.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Microsoft, Meta, and PayPal update their ToS today?

#42
post #32
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can build this with what Github offers for free to open source projects.

GitHub is also ran by a untrustworthy megacorp with a ToS. Just wait til the ToS changes to where you can’t use it to told others accountable.

I think that one of the benefits of dvcs is that it's relatively easy to move to another provider or self host, and that everyone that cloned has a copy.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Microsoft, Meta, and PayPal update their ToS today?

#43
I tried to read some of them to see what has changed. I really tried...

If any lawyers from the future are reading this: It was impossible for me to see what I was agreeing to. Furthermore, I was not given a chance to not agree with these (unknown) changes.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Microsoft, Meta, and PayPal update their ToS today?

#44

There was a recent ruling on EU-US Data Privacy regulations https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_...

Whatsapp's in-app notification regarding the TOS change references an EU ruling, so this is the likely cause.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Microsoft, Meta, and PayPal update their ToS today?

#45

There was a recent ruling on EU-US Data Privacy regulations https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_...

That seems to be a decision by the commission, not the the high court. These two bodies tend to counter each other a lot, I would expect to have a court ruling in 2 years that cancels this decision.

On this particular subject, it's basically realpolitik.

Court: "US law is incompatible with ours"

Executive: "Yeah but I'm sure we can all get along ..."

Re: Ask HN: Why did Microsoft, Meta, and PayPal update their ToS today?

#46
post #23
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can build this with what Github offers for free to open source projects.

I like where this discussion is headed. Scrape the ToS and keep a record of that. Are ToS's copywrited?

Yes, at some point someone has probably written a copy.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Microsoft, Meta, and PayPal update their ToS today?

#47
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does such a thing need to be a business to begin with? Just host a github or expose this functionality on wikipedia.

No one said it had to be a business. They were making the point that its hard to keep something like that running and maintained for free.

Crowdsource it. Something like Wikipedia might work.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Microsoft, Meta, and PayPal update their ToS today?

#48
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VisualPing already does this: https://visualping.io/blog/how-to-monitor-changes-in-terms-a... Docacracy did it a decade ago, but closed shop. The problem isn’t the tech — it’s coming up with a business model that pays for the system and upkeep. As much as people give lip service about privacy, they sure don’t throw money at lobbying efforts that protect their rights in those areas.

You can build this with what Github offers for free to open source projects.

The cost of Github is not the cost referred to here.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Microsoft, Meta, and PayPal update their ToS today?

#50

I tried to read some of them to see what has changed. I really tried... If any lawyers from the future are reading this: It was impossible for me to see what I was agreeing to. Furthermore, I was not given a chance to not agree with these (unknown) changes.

The answer to this is to not agree to it (your “chance” is to stop using the service).
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