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Terms and conditions word by word

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Re: Terms and conditions word by word

#31

Post by nihonde »

pluma wrote: post #30
reitanqild wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a lawyer but used to read EULAs etc carefully. At some point I gave in and decided a better approach would be to just point out that no sane consumer can read all that.

In Germany at least (and thus maybe most of the EU?) no customer actually has to read any of it. Anything in a ToS/EULA that could be considered "surprising" is unenforceable and therefore void. Of course that means the exact enforceable contents of every ToS ultimately boil down to case law but for customers this is a much better solution than "you may have accidentally sold your soul".

That's more or less true in America, too. Consumer contracts are generally subject to the "unconscionability" test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscionability#United_State.... It's not the same as "surprising", but the sentiment is roughly the same.

Re: Terms and conditions word by word

#32

Post by praptak »

nihonde wrote: post #26
danso wrote: post #19

Given that there's often a lot of boilerplate for TOS, would it be fairly easy to come up with a few heuristics for a tool that when fed the text of a TOS, could deemphasize the boilerplate and perhaps flag known problematic (or, at least, esoteric) language? Not a sophisticated AI thing, mind you, just something that cuts a little more to the chase. edit: I mean that the tool should be a dumb high-pass filter that w…

I'm a lawyer, and not an expert in AI. I once gathered a ton of Terms of Service, cleaned them up as text files, and began training a classifier. By the time I was done, it was pretty good at telling me which section heading in the typical ToS table of contents any random text belonged to. It was an interesting thought experiment, so I expanded it to my large body of private contracts that I've collected after many y…

> what are you going to do?

Possibly avoid the service or at least limit what data I share with them.

Re: Terms and conditions word by word

#33

Post by eggman »

reitanqild wrote: post #28
nihonde wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a lawyer, and not an expert in AI. I once gathered a ton of Terms of Service, cleaned them up as text files, and began training a classifier. By the time I was done, it was pretty good at telling me which section heading in the typical ToS table of contents any random text belonged to. It was an interesting thought experiment, so I expanded it to my large body of private contracts that I've collected after many y…

Not a lawyer but used to read EULAs etc carefully. At some point I gave in and decided a better approach would be to just point out that no sane consumer can read all that.

You took the path of reading EULA's carefully?! These documents are painfully lacking in clarity and sincerity. Content generators basically chump subscribers into clicking "I Agree".

Re: Terms and conditions word by word

#34

Post by INTPenis »

chirau wrote: post #6

I'd really love to see an app which monitors changes in terms and conditions for different apps and services so that I am notified whenever something changes.

The way I'm already being notified by various services of changes in their terms I'd venture a guess that they're required by law to notify their users.

Re: Terms and conditions word by word

#35

Post by nihonde »

praptak wrote: post #32
nihonde wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a lawyer, and not an expert in AI. I once gathered a ton of Terms of Service, cleaned them up as text files, and began training a classifier. By the time I was done, it was pretty good at telling me which section heading in the typical ToS table of contents any random text belonged to. It was an interesting thought experiment, so I expanded it to my large body of private contracts that I've collected after many y…

> what are you going to do? Possibly avoid the service or at least limit what data I share with them.

That's the right idea. It's a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. I think what's more interesting than policing Terms of Service changes is making the terms interactive, and attaching pricing to terms that are more consumer-friendly. Then I can choose how much I want to pay for my right to be treated like a valued human being.

Re: Terms and conditions word by word

#38

Post by frogpelt »

danso wrote: post #19

Given that there's often a lot of boilerplate for TOS, would it be fairly easy to come up with a few heuristics for a tool that when fed the text of a TOS, could deemphasize the boilerplate and perhaps flag known problematic (or, at least, esoteric) language? Not a sophisticated AI thing, mind you, just something that cuts a little more to the chase. edit: I mean that the tool should be a dumb high-pass filter that w…

What about when the problematic becomes boilerplate?

Re: Terms and conditions word by word

#39

Post by ghayes »

nihonde wrote: post #31
pluma wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany at least (and thus maybe most of the EU?) no customer actually has to read any of it. Anything in a ToS/EULA that could be considered "surprising" is unenforceable and therefore void. Of course that means the exact enforceable contents of every ToS ultimately boil down to case law but for customers this is a much better solution than "you may have accidentally sold your soul".

That's more or less true in America, too. Consumer contracts are generally subject to the "unconscionability" test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscionability#United_State... . It's not the same as "surprising", but the sentiment is roughly the same.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_wrap
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