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Terms of Service; Didn't Read

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Re: Terms of Service; Didn't Read

#31

Post by dctoedt »

Retric wrote: post #21
dctoedt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if you can click on "I agree", and lie. Then you wouldn't be bound by the terms, because you didn't consent to them .... It doesn't work that way --- courts look to objective manifestations of consent, not subjective intentions. In kids' terms: Crossing your fingers behind your back doesn't get you off the hook.

There is however a reasonable chance the person clicking I agree is not the end user. Setup a Facebook account for your grandparents who never click agree. Are they then bound by the TOS? In the end TOS are generally weakly enforceable. If facebook adds a 10,000$ annual fee in the fine print and there unlikely to be able to collect.

> Setup a Facebook account for your grandparents who never click agree. Are they then bound by the TOS?

My guess is that a court would ask: Can you reasonably be said to be the "agent" [1] for your grandparents --- that is, would a reasonable person, taking an objective look at the facts, conclude that your grandparents had authorized you to make binding agreements on their behalf --- for the kinds of transactions specified in the TOS?

If that's the question, then:

-- You probably are your grandparents' agent when it comes to agreeing, on their behalf, to the "customary" terms in TOS, such as (for example) a statement that the Web site owner owns all content;

-- You probably are not your grandparents' agent for purposes of agreeing to pay a $10K annual fee, and therefore they wouldn't be bound. (You might be bound, though ....)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_agency

Re: Terms of Service; Didn't Read

#32

Post by Natsu »

RKearney wrote: post #27
rev_bird wrote: post #17

One of my favorite ToS items is from LinkedIn: You aren't allowed to "deep-link to our sites for any purpose, (i.e. creating or posting a link to a LinkedIn web page other than LinkedIn’s home page)".[1] The act of linking to a publicly available website is against that website's terms. [1] https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement

You seemed to have cut off an important part of that clause. 10.2. Don’t undertake the following: 17 Deep-link to our sites for any purpose, (i.e. creating or posting a link to a LinkedIn web page other than LinkedIn’s home page) unless expressly authorized in writing by LinkedIn or for the purpose of promoting your profile or a Group on LinkedIn as set forth in the Brand Guidelines[0]; You can link to your own profi…

The idea that they're allowed to restrict it at all is inherently silly, though. I mean, as written, it seems to imply that I may not link to anyone else's profile...

I consider that kind of restriction inherently unconsionable, regardless of the nature of the parties involved.

EDIT: I should also note that you appear to be violating them in your post, as I did not see an exception for such pages as that, though "deep linking" is one of those vague things that means whatever they want it to mean. Anything but the home page can be argued to be "deep" but different people have very different ideas on the subject and there's no inherent or technological meaning behind how deep a link must be before being considered a "deep link." So they don't even give you proper notice of which links they do and do not forbid.

So not only is it dumb in general, it's vague enough to make every link not pre-approved by Linked-In suspect, which is something I would object to for that very reason.

Re: Terms of Service; Didn't Read

#33

Post by privong »

The browser add-on is nice – it adds an icon to the location bar with the overall site rating and makes the info readily accessible by clicking on that icon. It is nice to have a quick assessment of the site's TOS as soon right as the page loads.

Re: Terms of Service; Didn't Read

#34

Post by corford »

I'm about to launch and I hate ToSs that consist of dense nonsensical boilerplate legalese.

Is there anything out there (template or affordable service) to help a website owner construct a sane and simple ToS for their site/wepapp?

Re: Terms of Service; Didn't Read

#35

Post by chc »

snlacks wrote: post #25
rev_bird wrote: post #17

One of my favorite ToS items is from LinkedIn: You aren't allowed to "deep-link to our sites for any purpose, (i.e. creating or posting a link to a LinkedIn web page other than LinkedIn’s home page)".[1] The act of linking to a publicly available website is against that website's terms. [1] https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement

What if they find out that you just linked to a "deep-link?" Seriously though, is it made unenforceable when the usage by both parties (linkedin and users) actually encourage this? (Share this on facebook!) It sounds like a "catch-all" "don't like you" clause.

"Share this on Facebook" sounds like written approval for a link to me.

Re: Terms of Service; Didn't Read

#36

Post by subb »

snlacks wrote: post #25
rev_bird wrote: post #17

One of my favorite ToS items is from LinkedIn: You aren't allowed to "deep-link to our sites for any purpose, (i.e. creating or posting a link to a LinkedIn web page other than LinkedIn’s home page)".[1] The act of linking to a publicly available website is against that website's terms. [1] https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement

What if they find out that you just linked to a "deep-link?" Seriously though, is it made unenforceable when the usage by both parties (linkedin and users) actually encourage this? (Share this on facebook!) It sounds like a "catch-all" "don't like you" clause.

My guess is it's to prevent "copycat" websites like those for stackoverflow.

Re: Terms of Service; Didn't Read

#37

Post by hugoroy »

teachingaway wrote: post #23

Docracy had a great terms of service tracker - it diff'ed changes to TOS for a thousand companies. Looks like they shut it down last year though. https://www.docracy.com/tos/changes

Yes but it’s not open source. Ours is: https://tosback.org -- https://github.com/tosdr/tosback2 and tosback3

Re: Terms of Service; Didn't Read

#39

Post by hugoroy »

Hello, hugo from tosdr.org here!

Just wanted to point out that everything is on https://github.com/tosdr and there are easy stuff to work on to help us: https://github.com/tosdr/tosdr-build/labels/LowHangingFruit

Everything we make is Free Software (and open data) and we’re a not-for-profit.

We recently put online: https://tosdr.org/submit-point.html which is supposed to help increase contributions to the site so that we have more data and more relevant information. Please help us test, debug and contribute :-)

One last thing, we’re also running https://tosback.org/ -- all of this is a lot of work, and we definitely need more contributors :-) (opened another discussion about Tosback: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8396361)

Re: Terms of Service; Didn't Read

#40

Post by chuckcode »

Up vote, this seems like a great idea to me. I'd love to see companies get beat up publicly when terms of service are obviously bad. Would also love to see some standardization of privacy/content/other sub polices.

If we're all supposed to push our data from an internet of things into the cloud the community needs to hold companies accountable as nobody else is going to. I shudder to think what facebook would be doing right now if it hadn't been for public outcry over things like their "Beacon" program.

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