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I attempted a similar feat in 2010 with the now defunct tosgrok.com. This is a very needed service! Edit: Take the domain and put it to good use, I no longer own it and it beats tos;dr!
This is a very convenient service for the users, but it might raise some issues if any of these terms are ever argued in court. Defending that you read the ToS;DR and not the terms of service might not hold much water.
- To cancel the service
- To not join in the first place
- To raise a collective stink about something onerous in the terms
Any of these things, in high numbers, could force a service provider to update their TOS to be more friendly. That's a pretty good outcome even if saying "but the ToS;DR said!!!" would never hold up in court or anywhere else.
It seems idealistic, but a service like this would be incredibly insightful. I only "read" (read: skim) the TOS of a select few companies (Apple, for one), so the high-level summaries shown on this landing page are immensely valuable (though the scoring system seems obtuse). Of course, now one has to worry about the objectivity of the summarizers.
Yes, trust is one problem. I think we're being objective (at least we are trying, with building a scoring system that's automatic). But for sure, we are not being neutral. We do think that tracking should always be opt-in, not opt-out. At least, we're working in total transparency and it's an open process. I hope that helps.
I attempted a similar feat in 2010 with the now defunct tosgrok.com. This is a very needed service! Edit: Take the domain and put it to good use, I no longer own it and it beats tos;dr!
To be fair, neither is exactly terminology familiar with the average user, who I think they're trying to reach out to here. Both are clever, but known mostly by avid Internet users or nerds.
It seems idealistic, but a service like this would be incredibly insightful. I only "read" (read: skim) the TOS of a select few companies (Apple, for one), so the high-level summaries shown on this landing page are immensely valuable (though the scoring system seems obtuse). Of course, now one has to worry about the objectivity of the summarizers.
Yes, trust is one problem. I think we're being objective (at least we are trying, with building a scoring system that's automatic). But for sure, we are not being neutral. We do think that tracking should always be opt-in, not opt-out. At least, we're working in total transparency and it's an open process. I hope that helps.
An API and chrome addon would be very nice. I wouldn't check the site, but I would like warnings when I accessed the registration page of a bad website.
Update: I guess this could be used as an API of sorts: https://raw.github.com/unhosted/ToS-DR/gh-pages/points.json
This seems like an excellent way to deal with this issue too!
Thanks ToS;DR!
A suggestion - rather than rating "A" through "E" why not change to the more recognizable (for US audience at least) scale of "A through F" (A/B/C/D/F) which we're all mercilessly trained to recognize through years of school grades?
"E" as your worst rating confused me at first glance - could be interpreted as "Excellent"
I have been thinking about doing something similar for quite sometime now. Specifically I wanted to build a browser extension that highlights only the important parts of agreement. And the important points will in turn be decided by the community of users with the system keeping track of different versions of agreements and data of interest in it.
This seems like a VERY good idea! Even when i take the time to read the TOS on sites (granted, it is rare), i come away unsure that i really understand it. This seems like an excellent way to deal with this issue too! Thanks ToS;DR!