Terms of Service; Didn’t Read • Hacker News Board

Re: Terms of Service; Didn’t Read

#21

Post by tmikaeld » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

mkl95 wrote: post #12

gorgoiler wrote: post #6

If a website knows I didn't really read a contract, can they claim I am bound by it? I like to hope that the time-spent-reading is logged somewhere. Should it come up in court, Website.com would be required to disclose their logs which would show that I spent all of 1.35s reading their terms and conditions, most of which was spent scrolling. Another puerile hack of mine is to sign a document with the name "I do not a…

It should be fairly easy to do this with something like Hotjar. Although I'm not sure if it is legally feasible to do it without the user's consent, especially in Europe.

You'd just have to agree to the agreement to be tracked first.

Though, GDPR stipulates that if it's a legal requirement for the service to work (which is the case) then it's not required to log visitor approval.

Re: Terms of Service; Didn’t Read

#22

Post by dwighttk » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 1:43 PM UTC

stunt wrote: post #10

I think we need some universal standards for ToS. The same way we have some visual rating signs for movies and video games. Most of it should be regular and easy to categories. And there should be a separate rating for how many irregular terms are in there.

Yeah let the lawyers argue over what the pictures mean and let us normals just have little pictures.

Re: Terms of Service; Didn’t Read

#23

Post by pitspotter » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 1:44 PM UTC

I frequently get mails from banks and other service providers with subject lines like 'changes to our agreement'. I don't read those either. Mind you, it might be fun to send a few unilateral changes back their way, detailed in a suitably upbeat or condescending letter.

Re: Terms of Service; Didn’t Read

#24

Post by Moru » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 1:48 PM UTC

castorp wrote: post #3

Ages ago I installed a shareware product. And it also had a scrollable "terms and condition" screen (about 2 pages long) when starting it for the first time. When you clicked the "I Agree" button too quickly it would ask you "Do you really agree to the terms you read in only 0.76 seconds?"

My favourites are the boxed games that comes with "If you break the seal you agree to our terms that you can read inside the box" style of agreements. Those are ofcourse not valid though so not a problem.

Re: Terms of Service; Didn’t Read

#25

Post by nerdponx » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 1:54 PM UTC

stunt wrote: post #8

gorgoiler wrote: post #6

If a website knows I didn't really read a contract, can they claim I am bound by it? I like to hope that the time-spent-reading is logged somewhere. Should it come up in court, Website.com would be required to disclose their logs which would show that I spent all of 1.35s reading their terms and conditions, most of which was spent scrolling. Another puerile hack of mine is to sign a document with the name "I do not a…

Yes, as long as they make it a required step. It's your fault if you choose to not read it.

I am curious if there is any legal doctrine on this in any part of the world.

Re: Terms of Service; Didn’t Read

#26

Post by 1ncorrect » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 1:58 PM UTC

stunt wrote: post #10

I think we need some universal standards for ToS. The same way we have some visual rating signs for movies and video games. Most of it should be regular and easy to categories. And there should be a separate rating for how many irregular terms are in there.

I’ve been chewing on an idea for a while around programmatically handling license agreements, basically each clause is checked atomically, with flow logic as necessary. You could have a personal profile, possibly multiple, of things you’ve decided to accept or reject beforehand, and the anomalous clauses would be presented as a list to review. Providers would have an incentive to reduce the friction by limiting scope to what’s actually required, not just what they want.

With wide enough support, a couple of benefits would be nefarious and malicious components would get highlighted quickly, and it could serve as a feedback channel from consumers to suppliers on why an agreement was rejected.

Ultimately, the power dynamic needs to be recalibrated.

Re: Terms of Service; Didn’t Read

#27

Post by albertgoeswoof » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 1:59 PM UTC

gorgoiler wrote: post #6

If a website knows I didn't really read a contract, can they claim I am bound by it? I like to hope that the time-spent-reading is logged somewhere. Should it come up in court, Website.com would be required to disclose their logs which would show that I spent all of 1.35s reading their terms and conditions, most of which was spent scrolling. Another puerile hack of mine is to sign a document with the name "I do not a…

This is why they’re non enforceable in a real court. If I put the rights to your inheritance in a tos no judge is actually going to enforce that, because no one would reasonably sign that away for access to a website.

In reality only things which you would reasonably expect to be in a tos or privacy policy could be enforced, given 99% of users don’t read them, or understand them.

Re: Terms of Service; Didn’t Read

#28

Post by avel » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

stunt wrote: post #10

I think we need some universal standards for ToS. The same way we have some visual rating signs for movies and video games. Most of it should be regular and easy to categories. And there should be a separate rating for how many irregular terms are in there.

We tried that for Privacy Policies with P3P (https://www.w3.org/P3P/) and we failed.

Re: Terms of Service; Didn’t Read

#29

Post by LadyCailin » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

II2II wrote: post #18

On the first day of a university course, several hundred students asked to line up and sign a two page agreement in order to access computing resources necessary for the course. When my turn came, I asked where I could read it without holding up the entire line. They were shocked that anyone would ask such a question, though they provided me a space to read over the document. If blindly signing a contract one of the…

Just out of curiosity, what happened if you declined to sign? You flunk out of the course? Reading the TOS is pointless anyways, when declining them is very problematic for you.

Re: Terms of Service; Didn’t Read

#30

Post by albertgoeswoof » Sun, Jan 10, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

stunt wrote: post #10

I think we need some universal standards for ToS. The same way we have some visual rating signs for movies and video games. Most of it should be regular and easy to categories. And there should be a separate rating for how many irregular terms are in there.

A centralised service that tracks all your tos agreements and changes would also be great. It would make things easier for developers as wel