Comment by godwinson__4-8
3 days ago
How else would you "opt out"? You want to have your cake and eat it too?
Most people don't care about the Terms of Service. Would you have a more positive assessment of the judicial system if it infantilized its citizens? If someone doesn't read it the first time or ignores an email what is the system supposed to do? Stand over your shoulder and make you read it? Do you want citizens to be prosecuted for signing things on the theory they didn't actually read them?
What number of people actually read the terms, actually read the new terms, decide they don't like the new terms, but after caring this much decide they don't want to "opt out" (I'm still not clear what remedy you want to invent for this)? Do you think this number is so high that you should be shocked that for some reason this is not a priority? I'm not even sure you've actually articulated a problem.
Is there a Terms of Service change you find particularly offensive that might better explain your concerns here? If so, I would be interested to hear you describe it with greater specificity.
> How else would you "opt out"? You want to have your cake and eat it too
If the TOS changes you should be automatically opted out until you explicitly accept the new agreement
That way if you stop using the service because of the new TOS, it actually means your old activity is still bound by the previous TOS not the new one. Weird how that's never an option though.
> If the TOS changes you should be automatically opted out until you explicitly accept the new agreement
Does it not work this way? Don't the terms you sign often say something like these terms can be updated at any time? Yet they still often want you to agree to the new terms to proceed, right?
> That way if you stop using the service because of the new TOS, it actually means your old activity is still bound by the previous TOS not the new one.
Are you suggesting a statutory remedy? What is the average diff of a terms change? Are they really that meaningful? I would think the scope of what they can actually change is controlled by various other areas of law. If you don't accept the new terms are you concerned your old data is going to be used in a new way, while you remain opted out of the future? Is that actually how it works? It feels like it would not, which I gather is why they often want you to explicitly accept the new terms.
Once again it would be helpful if a specific change or event was brought up here that better explained your concerns. I feel like there are times when I am forced to agree to new terms to continue using the service, and other times where it feels like I am not. I would suspect this relates to some controlling law regarding the nature of the update itself, as not all updates are equally meaningful?
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> How else would you "opt out"? You want to have your cake and eat it too?
I should have the option to continue using the old terms. If they want to be able to change the terms after I initially agree to them, then the initial terms need to explicitly state how long the terms are good for, and they can't be changed before that. No "we can change the terms at any time". And yes, to accept the new terms, they should require that I explicitly acknowledge the changes, not just assume that I read an email lost in all the marketing spam they send me.
> Is there a Terms of Service change you find particularly offensive that might better explain your concerns here?
Changes in terms that I've found offensive include:
- Requiring that I don't participate in any class-action lawsuits or arbitration
- Using my data to train AI
- Limiting the devices I can use the service on
- Allowing them to share my data with third parties
- etc.
Admittedly, I haven't always opted out. But largely because I don't have much of a choice, in many cases there either isn't a realistic alternative to switch to, or all the alternatives have similar terms, which is it's own problem.
As for what changes I would like to see:
- There should be well-defined limits on what can be put in a ToS. Ex. you can't prohibit participating in class-action lawsuits. There should be a process for appealing arbitration to an actual court. etc.
- For paid subscriptions/license any ToS apply for the duration of the subscription/license. They cannot force you to change the terms until your current subscription expires. For on-demand or free services, they must guarantee the terms won't change for some period of time.
- They must provide easily understandable terms or at least easily understandable (and accurate) descriptions of the terms, that don't leave out subtle loopholes for the company.
- If the terms do change, they notify you with enough notice that you have time to migrate off of the platform before the new terms take affect.
- The new terms can't be retroactively applied to data I gave them before the change in terms, unless I specifically opt in.
These are some good concrete answers on proposed changes, thanks.
Sounds like things to be codified in statutory regulations. I suspect some of these must exist in bills somewhere, will enjoy checking on that later. Have a good day!