Get the “Terms of Service” Clauses You Need on This Site
Whenever you start using a new product, you are often offered terms of service, often an exceptionally long document filled with language that, even if you really tried to read it all (we know you won’t), you probably would not understand what rights you actually transferred. Terms of Use; Didn’t Read is a website and browser extension that will help you figure things out.
This is exactly what you think: The tool takes the terms of service you haven’t read and breaks them down into short bullet points, highlighting the main findings. The site also assigns each service an A to E rating based on whether or not it thinks it is a good idea for you based on what the site is asking of you.
Twitter, for example, is a “Class D” site – it has a very broad copyright license for your content, uses third-party cookies, and reserves the right to disclose your personal information without notice, among other things.
Github, on the other hand, gets B because while your account may be suspended and data deleted at any time for whatever reason, the service also respects your browser’s Do Not Track headers and keeps an archive of their terms of service for you to view. changes over time.
The service has labeled versions of the terms of service for a significant number of sites and services; However, it now only has ratings for a few. Even major services like WhatsApp and PayPal are still rocking “No class yet” stickers. Google, YouTube, Amazon, and Soundcloud already have ratings.
Obviously, the best policy is to always read the terms of service for any new site or service before sharing your personal information. In fact, however, if we all read all the TOS docs for everything we’ve used, we’ll probably never finish. It’s a great quick and dirty way to get the information you need to decide if you want to use a product or choose something else.