Do you know what you’re giving away when you sign up for websites? Most internet users blindly accept Terms of Service (TOS) agreements when they create accounts. TOS agreements spell out the rules users must obey in order to use a web service. Additionally, important information regarding the rights of users and of the company is included in these TOS agreements. Such agreements are unavoidable by internet users; this unavoidability is precisely why these agreements are potentially dangerous to the rights of internet users. The implementation, language, and length of TOS agreements make them morally unacceptable.
There are very few ways that TOS agreements are implemented. Commonly, users must check a checkbox located at the bottom of an account creation form, which affirms that they accept the TOS. In addition, “Terms of Service” or a similar phrase is often hyperlinked to the actual text. In another implementation, a short sentence explains that by clicking on the button to submit the form, the user agrees to the TOS. Both implementations are highly ineffective due to their passive nature. There is nothing to compel a user to read the actual text. Users just have to check the checkbox and/or submit the form in order to get on with internet activities. Why waste time reading a legal document when one could be doing something else? Indeed, most people just want to get on with what they were doing instead of reading the TOS. Passive implementations of TOS agreements are not urging users to read the text.
The language of TOS agreements may also discourage users from reading them. Unsurprisingly, TOS agreements, as legal documents, are often laden with legalese. In a study that analyzed 30 different TOS agreements, there were many...
... middle of paper ...
...o read the TOS, legalese and low readability are obstructions to comprehension. Additionally, the length of TOS agreements may also contribute to failures of comprehension by mental fatigue or may discourage users from reading them in their entirety. If users knowingly forfeit certain rights in exchange for using a service, no moral issue would arise. Finally, it should be up to companies rather than the users to change because companies have the resources to change far quicker than users. Changes need to happen to TOS agreements: only then would you be expected to understand completely what you’re giving away when you sign up for a website.
Works Cited
Fiesler, Casey, and Amy Bruckman. "Copyright Terms in Online Creative Communities." Proc. of CHI 2014, Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Toronto, ON. Association for Computing Machinery, n.d. PDF file. 24 Apr. 2014.
In re Zappos.com, Inc., Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, No. 3:2012cv00325, was a case held in United States District Court for the District of Nevada in which the Court supposed that the customers of Zappos.com were not held to the browse wrap terms of use due to their ambiguous nature and also held that the agreement was not enforceable since Zappos had earmarked the right to make changes in it at any time without notifying the customers. The above court decision set preference for businesses that use browse wrap agreements and/or comprise a phrase in their agreements that let them to change the agreements at any phase. The decision fortified conversations on how commerce must utmost fairly exhibit its terms and conditions of use and how to circumvent inequitableness and obscurity when writing them.
If one tries to design and implement a bundled payment system with commercial payers, he or she would immediately find that there exist complex legal issues of Fraud and Abuse to consider. This is mainly because the applicable laws were not designed to such types of systems. Although it may require a significant amount of time and effort to set up a compliant bundled payment system, I believe that it is possible to create such systems, and eventually, to overcome legal challenges for Fraud and Abuse. This paper hypothesizes that in designing commercial bundled payment system, increased utilization of applicable exceptions of related laws can reduce the potential legal risk of Fraud and Abuse.
Over the past decade the societal view of creative society has greatly changed due to advances in computer technology and the Internet. In 1995, aware of the beginning of this change, two authors wrote articles in Wired Magazine expressing diametrically opposed views on how this technological change would take form, and how it would affect copyright law. In the article "The Emperor's Clothes Still Fit Just Fine" Lance Rose hypothesized that the criminal nature of copyright infringement would prevent it from developing into a socially acceptable practice. Thus, he wrote, we would not need to revise copyright law to prevent copyright infringement. In another article, Entitled "Intellectual Value", Esther Dyson presented a completely different view of the copyright issue. She based many her arguments on the belief that mainstream copyright infringement would proliferate in the following years, causing a radical revision of American ideas and laws towards intellectual property. What has happened since then? Who was right? This paper analyzes the situation then and now, with the knowledge that these trends are still in a state of transformation. As new software and hardware innovations make it easier to create, copy, alter, and disseminate original digital content, this discussion will be come even more critical.
In 2009, Game Station, a prominent store for virtual gaming, altered its terms and conditions for one day. On this day, the 7,000 people who accepted the Terms and Conditions granted the company a “non-transferable option to claim their non-immortal soul” (Terms and Conditions May Apply). In Terms and Conditions May Apply, a documentary, the narrator, Cullen Hoback, explicates the unwarranted invasion of personal information that occurs every day due to hidden amendments in websites’ Terms and Conditions. He covers many topics surrounding Terms and Conditions, including the monopolization of companies due to intrusion on personal information and politicians having to answer the call of the American people for greater privacy policies. While
[xiv] Tavani, Herman T., “Privacy and the Internet” Ethics and Technology Conference, Boston, MA, 5 June 1999. (Boston College Intellectual Property Forum, 2000) http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/law/st_org/iptf/commentary/
"The WWW offers a wide variety of communication, information and interaction. Cookies provide for necessary customization. But the Internet is not outside the law. Existing regulations, targeted at protecting personal information, limit the use and application of cookies. Current cookie usage violates such norms. Content providers continuing to use cookies that violate these regulations and browser producers unwilling or incapable of bringing their products into accordance with these laws both risk legal liability. It should be their concern to avoid legal action; and it should be our concern to safeguard our privacy."
Wang, F. F. (2010). Law of Electronic Commercial Transactions: Contemporary Issues in the EU, US and China (Routledge Research in Information Technology and E-commerce Law). Routledge.
...are of the consequences of the terms of agreement that they are checking. The consumer believes that only simple data is being kept and used by the company. They are unaware that through the sophisticated use of data mining very personal information is being shared with numerous companies. Each company causes further layers of information to be mined and shared, thereby truly breaching a consumer’s level of confidentiality.
...ine what is considered acceptable use and non-acceptable use. After reading this document every user should be required to sign and acknowledge they understand what the document has outlined for them.
... it could affect other aspects of our online lives. At this point we may just pay for it. However, there truly is middle ground, but unfortunately most people are not looking at it – nor is this article. It's not an either/or situation as everyone has put forward. We simply need to control what users are able to contribute to the internet, and where, rather than either allowing them to uncontrolled, or not at all.
The current direction most online companies are moving towards is creating a lot of backlash from critics and consumers of the online services and products. The invasion of privacy is often the result of companies mishandling personal information or intellectual property of ...
Papacharissi, Zizi, and Jan Fernback. "Online Privacy And Consumer Protection: An Analysis Of Portal Privacy Statements." Journal Of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 49.3 (2005): 259-281. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
Everyday millions of people are using the Internet. The Internet gives people the freedom to look up and download a variety of information. But where is the line drawn to determine how far someone is allowed to go when using the Internet? Laws and regulations for the Internet are just as important as they are in everyday life. Netiquette, Acceptable Use Policies, and Copyright laws are exceptionally vital when using the Internet.
h Internet privacy law is a necessary tool that is used by all the multinational companies to keep the data of their customers to themselves only and did not want to give it to anyone. For example, a large telecom company might have thousands of customers and the company has the personal data of each and every customer separately but a person which is not a member of the company cannot see the data because the company has made it available to the specific person which are the repres...
S., F. (2008). The copyright handbook: What every writer needs to know. Nolo, CA: Berkeley.