I Have Neither Read Nor Understood

   The site masthead starts out with the statement:“I have read and agree to the Terms” is the biggest lie on the web. We aim to fix that.

   This is the lead statement on the tosdr.org website.  tosdr is an acronym for "Terms of Service; Didn't Read".  It's a play on words (play on acronyms? :-)) of tl;dr, Too Long; Didn't Read.  tl;dr has been a term floating around the interwebs for many years.  It simply expresses a sentiment that many people can relate to... that we're busy, so when there is a long article, post, whitepaper, document, documentation, etc., we might just not read it.  That also leads to the idea of the tl;dr version, i.e. executive summary!

   Clearly, Terms of Service statements fit into this category.  They tend to be exceedingly long.  They are often written FLBL (For Lawyers, By Lawyers)! :-)  You see them all over the place... on your bank's website, on social media sites, when you sign up for just about any kind of service, and with just about every app you install.

   So, if no one reads them, what's the problem?  Like a contract, the Terms of Service or EULA (End User License Agreement) provides some very important information.  For example, it may cover:

• how the app, website or company can use your personal data;
• if the site can sell your data,
• whether or not you own any content you upload (such as to a social media site);
• how, when, how much you can use the app, service or website;
• if the site can charge you money, either one time or ongoing;
• if you have any rights to seek damages against the company if you don't like how they conduct business
• and more...

   Here are a few interesting articles pointing out additional problems:

   Do You Read Terms Of Service Contracts? Not Many Do, Research Shows
   Schools, Like Everyone Else, Are Not Reading the Terms of Service

   I read all the small print on the internet and it made me want to die

   I try to not recommend particular products on this blog.  But here's one that is pretty cool!  As I noted above, it's called tosdr (Terms of Service, Didn't Read).  At tosdr.org you can get plugins for the major browsers.  If you install the plugin, then when you surf to a website with a Terms of Service, tosdr will provide a grade on the quality of the ToS.

   Please remember... this is something you can use at home.  You should not install consumer programs like this on your work computers.  Check with your IT group for their controls.

   Here is the tosdr grading system:

Terms of service are reviewed by contributors and divided into small points that we can discuss, compare and ultimately assign a score with a badge:

+ Good, - Bad, × Blocker, or → Neutral. Once a service has enough badges to assess the fairness of their terms for users, a class is assigned automatically by pondering the average scores.
Class A are the best terms of services: they treat you fairly, respect your rights and will not abuse your data.

Class B  The terms of services are fair towards the user but they could be improved.
Class C  The terms of service are okay but some issues need your consideration.
Class D  The terms of service are very uneven or there are some important issues that need your attention.
Class E  The terms of service raise very serious concerns.
No Class Yet  We haven't sufficiently reviewed the terms yet.

   Now, it's important to note that these ratings are "crowd sourced".  That means they depend on people on the internet to rate sites.

   Give it a try!

   So, here's the question... when you see those long EULAs or Terms of Service... have you read them?  If not, are you going to start?