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

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

#131

Post by andylynch »

rodolphoarruda wrote: post #124
hnbad wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in Germany. There was an interesting case against WhatsApp banning a user for using a third-party app, which WhatsApp argued was against the ToS but the court ruled that the user could not have expected this to result in account termination as using third-party clients was perfectly acceptable practice for similar apps and the user was not explicitly warned this would happen. Basically you can't sneak gotchas in…

> " you have to make sure users know" There is a lot to be learned in this regard from financial products online. Most of them have built in functionality to let users know what they are doing and the associated risk.

That’s because there have been countless similar games played for centuries and financial/ consumer protection regulations have forced them to. Where they aren’t regulated the same way, it’s a minefield. eg the CFD firms advertising on TV aren’t saying ’72% of our customers lose money ‘ because it’s nice or helpful.

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

#132

Post by ipqk »

oezi wrote: post #24

Since I have not gotten any emails from these services, it would be good if you share your present jurisdiction.

Companies may spread out their emails over days.

Right now Google is sending out emails about their new Gmail inactive account policy. A lot of people use my domain name as their email address for some reason. I've gotten 17 emails so far, the first one dated July 20th, the last one yesterday August 18th. Almost a MONTH, and all the destination email addresses are their own!

it may even be longer since they're all in my trash and it auto-deletes after a month.

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

#133

Post by Jon_Lowtek »

j-bos wrote: post #103
oever wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Catch 22: first agree to the Microsoft GitHub ToS. Or you can use a friendlier service like the one provided by Codeberg. https://docs.codeberg.org/getting-started/what-is-codeberg/#...

Well consumers of the diff aren't yet required to agree.

GitHubs privacy policy towards end users says they collect usage information and telemetry, among other data. So you host a project comparing ToS on GitHub and Microsoft collects information about anyone viewing the project, who referred them, their browser fingerprint and much more. This usage data might, depending on technical design, even enable them to collect fingerprints on features like opening the comment trees of specific contract clause.

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

#134

Post by RecycledEle »

kwanbix wrote: post #85
kramerger wrote: post #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.

It is crazy how unreasonable the world of law is. Just some days ago, I installed some game (Assassins Creed I think?) and it had 3 agreements to read, each one a kilometer long (just a figure of speech). Really? To play a game? Of course nobody reads them and just press Accept.

What kind of person agrees to 3 long contracts to play a game?

I would not do that.

I think the problem is with the consumer, not the producer.

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

#135

Post by Filligree »

ahtihn wrote: post #100
jddj wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the venn diagram of companies using outlook/office365 and companies with a well resourced legal department has as much overlap as one might hope

I'd expect the set of companies with a well resourced legal department to be almost fully contained in the set of companies using outlook/office365. What else is there for corporate email?

Mine uses gmail. It works well enough.

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

#136

Post by brookst »

more_corn wrote: post #114
Hackbraten wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I do is spot check, i.e. open an agreement, pick two or three spots at random, and do my best to read and understand those. My hope is if just 1000 people did that, they’d be able to collectively spot unexpected/unacceptable terms and make them public.

I bet ChatGPT could summarize

What if one of the terms is that users may not use AI to summarize the TOS?

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

#137

Post by cloverich »

RecycledEle wrote: post #134
kwanbix wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is crazy how unreasonable the world of law is. Just some days ago, I installed some game (Assassins Creed I think?) and it had 3 agreements to read, each one a kilometer long (just a figure of speech). Really? To play a game? Of course nobody reads them and just press Accept.

What kind of person agrees to 3 long contracts to play a game? I would not do that. I think the problem is with the consumer, not the producer.

It does not matter what one personally does in this scenario. It matters what most people do. If most people accept unethical or dangerous contracts as normal, then (some) corporate behavior that is unethical or dangerous becomes allowed, or worse (normalized). So it matters instead whether you are pro or against that, and what political action you take to steer that in a more desirable direction. We all (arguably) have an obligation to help steer society in healthy directions whether we want to participate or not,.

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

#138

Post by Aachen »

marcosdumay wrote: post #126
Aachen wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting case, I didn't know of that one. Thanks for posting! > Ironically this is unlike actual laws where ignorance is not an excuse I think it's similar to real laws. Unacceptable rules: sneaking in terms such as that your firstborn child will belong to me is not enforceable: nobody could expect or would agree to that. In law, similarly, you can't just upend someone's life for a minor infraction, or indeed take…

> In law, similarly, you can't just upend someone's life for a minor infraction Yeah, that's the theory. But what a judge will decide qualifies for "minor" may or may not align with what is sane or what most people believe, and this gets worse and worse if you go into higher courts with politically appointed judges. On practice governments upend people lives all the time, even for presumed infractions that may not be…

I kind of agree with that. I did say "It's rarely perfectly fair towards everyone in all situations", but I'd be curious to hear of examples where you think the judge ruled something goes so far that makes you say it doesn't "align with what is sane" and that such things happen all the time. Do you have any examples?

Edit: from a place like Germany as the person above was talking about, to be clear. If such things are trivial to find in the USA would not surprise me in the slightest

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

#139

Post by gardenhedge »

Hackbraten wrote: post #88
kwanbix wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is crazy how unreasonable the world of law is. Just some days ago, I installed some game (Assassins Creed I think?) and it had 3 agreements to read, each one a kilometer long (just a figure of speech). Really? To play a game? Of course nobody reads them and just press Accept.

What I do is spot check, i.e. open an agreement, pick two or three spots at random, and do my best to read and understand those. My hope is if just 1000 people did that, they’d be able to collectively spot unexpected/unacceptable terms and make them public.

and what if you find something? tweet into the void?

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

#140

Post by chrisjj »

thephyber wrote: post #11
kingkongjaffa wrote: post #4

Project idea: host version controlled TOS copies from companies to see what changes each time.

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.

-1 for VisualPing.
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