No one wants to spend four hours reading through a mountain of fine print terms of service from iTunes, and then Instagram, and then Facebook, and then Amazon.com…and so on. As long as one can click ‘agree’ and forego the legal jargon, fine print will forever be overlooked by the thousands who agree to stuff they don’t realize they’re agreeing to. For that reason, companies are able to take advantage of consumers and sneak in all sorts of inappropriate and unsettling nonsense into their contracts. Here are the 10 most controversial pieces of fine print ever, as dug up by the meticulous and concerned.
1. Facebook Removes Right to Opt-Out of Search Results
Privacy is one of the biggest concerns for Facebook users everywhere; while members want to be able to share personal pictures, videos and updates with close friends and family, it’s controlling who exactly sees those updates is also extremely important to most. Everyone’s heard horror stories about some poor guy’s boss accidentally seeing Facebook photos of his employee doing beer bongs on his “sick” day, and most people are familiar with trying to hide their internet presence from a stalking ex girlfriend or boyfriend.
This is why people were understandably outraged when Facebook subtly changed their Terms of Service to revoke users’ ability to opt out of search results in early 2013. Private profile? Sorry, but it’s not that private anymore. Although Facebook’s new Graph Search was leaked slowly and still somewhat of an unknown feature, it’s now becoming the subject of much controversy since it allows users to search through and view pictures, status updates, and other information that is otherwise hidden on a user’s private profile. In other words, it overrides your privacy settings.
Facebook’s justification? “Only a single-digit percent of users” had opted out of appearing in search results.
2. Facebook vs. The FTC
Facebook’s Graph Search isn’t the first time they’ve changed their Terms of Service to include sneaky fine print. In 2012, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) actually deemed Facebook’s fine print ‘deceptive’ and ordered that it be changed. After controversy arose when Facebook told users they would be able to keep personal information private on the site only to later change the terms to be able to share that information with the public, the FTC stepped in:
“The settlement requires Facebook to take several steps to make sure it lives up to its promises in the future, including by giving consumers clear and prominent notice and obtaining their express consent before sharing their information beyond their privacy settings, by maintaining a comprehensive privacy program to protect consumers’ information, and by obtaining biennial privacy audits from an independent third party.”
And thus at the hands of the FTC and a class action lawsuit brought against Facebook by disgruntled users, a settlement was reached.
3. Instagram Loses Half of Users Over TOS Changes
Instagram, the popular photo-sharing social media platform, boasts over 100 million users. But that statistic comes after almost half of their users were lost due to controversy surrounding their new Terms of Service, released in late 2012 and containing fine print that implied Instagram was planning to sell users’ pictures to third party businesses.
This change came soon after Facebook acquired Instagram for US$1 billion, which users were concerned about to begin with. But concern turned to anger once Instagram released what many users called its “suicide note” when it changed its fine print to state that Instagram would:
(a) Have transferable, sub-licensable rights to user content without pay, royalties or any credit whatsoever.
(b) Retain the power to “display a user’s username, photograph, likeness, and/or actions in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions.”
(c) Run advertisements masquerading as regular user content.
(d) Be immune to any lawsuits.
(e) Be able to change the TOS without further updating users.
As a result, Instagram users on Facebook dropped from 16.35 million to 7.42 in just a day. And although Instagram panicked and reverted most of their TOS fine print back to its original state, the damage had already been done.
4. Yahoo and Geocities
Fine print controversies are not just a recent issue. When Yahoo! bought GeoCities for US$3.6 billion in 1999, the company modified their Terms of Service in a way that proved extremely alarming for millions of users.
When Yahoo-Geocities launched, the Terms of Service stated that the company “owns all web pages, articles, and images on member sites and has ‘irrevocable’ rights to them for all time.”
While many Geocities sites were nothing more than the ‘Dollz’ collections of middle school kids, many used those sites to host their professional writing, photography, and other media content that they didn’t want to see being used without their credit or permission. While Yahoo!’s defense stated that this was merely an attempt to keep them out of courtrooms and safe from legal battles entirely, the public outcry did not relent. It was Yahoo! who relented in the face of a possible user boycott against using the GeoCities service: Yahoo! modified their controversial Terms of Service stating that they did not own any user’s content and could/would not license it without exclusive permission.
5. Buy.com and Orbitz Linked to Secret Credit Card Charges
Buy.com and Orbitz found themselves in hot water in 2009 after throes of users began complaining that mysterious and unauthorized charges were showing up on their credit card statements. Upon inquiry, it turned out that these companies were enrolling users in “cash back” loyalty programs with third party companies without the permission of its users. One user, John Lowensohn, found a US$12 charge for each of 8 months on his credit card from a company called WebLoyalty.
Web Loyalty programs have apparently been sneakily used for years by these and other companies such as Fandango; the secret partnership allows a company to charge third parties a fee for, in turn, charging you recurring fees that you may not even know exist. All it takes is one pesky pop-up requesting your email - not even your credit card - to rope you into this scam.
Appallingly, many companies utilizing this practice defend themselves simply by stating that users should read their TOS more closely since it’s basically “right there.” In turn, class action lawsuits have been filed against multiple third party companies for fraudulent charges, one stating that “consumers almost never legitimately join any of Vertue Adaptive Marketing’s various membership programs.”
6. Facebook Owns Your Photos
Once again, Facebook is a contender for producing some of the most controversial fine print within their Terms of Service agreement. This time, Facebook removed the user’s rights to their own photographs. But not entirely, they protested - they only reserve the right to keep any pictures you upload, even if you choose to delete them. Facebook can use these pictures however they see fit - on their own advertisements or by selling them to other companies. Since the biggest issue with a user’s images being utilized by Facebook was the fact that the company could use that embarrassing image of you puking up your own birthday cake while you were wasted in your mom’s living room long after you had deleted it off the site, Facebook eventually revised it’s Terms of Service to state that deleted pictures would be removed from the database thirty days after deletion.
7. iTunes’ Epic Fine Print
The tendency to click ‘agree’ on iTunes’ 56-page-plus Terms of Service agreement has been the brunt of a scathingly funny South Park episode which parodies the fact that millions of people are randomly agreeing to contracts that could literally say anything…without reading them at all.
But there have been some nice enough to outline the disturbing clauses in this epic fine print, namely iTunes’ right to use your personal information, contents of your iTunes library, and “other information” if you simply want to use their Genius feature, which helps recommend new music based on what you’re already listening to.
And that’s just the beginning. iTunes states that any piece of lost or damaged download media is your problem alone; iTunes does not need to reimburse you and basically says “you should’ve backed up your files and it’s not our problem.” Which is adding insult to injury, considering that additional fine print implies that your purchase of a song only licenses you to listen to it and, unlike buying a hard copy, doesn’t give you ownership rights over what you’ve just bought - a little tidbit that Bruce Willis considered suing iTunes over since he wanted to leave his extensive music collection to his daughters in his will.
8. Google’s Attempt to Streamline
Google search, Gmail, Contacts, Calendar, YouTube…What do all of these have in common? They all fall under the umbrella of Google, who for some reason thought it would be a good idea to try and force users to aggregate their previously separated information across all platforms. But what if you didn’t want your Gmail contacts (which might include your grandparents and boss at Best Buy) to see your YouTube channel containing personal videos of you Cosplaying as Anime characters in the privacy of your bedroom late at night?
When Google updated its Terms of Service to reflect this attempt at aggregation, users were outraged and began accusing the company of spying on them inappropriately. It didn’t help that Google mentioned that user activity would be collected to help the company show the user advertisements geared specifically toward them, and the privacy concerns were so serious as a result that eight members of Congress actually wrote to Google asking that they clarify their TOS in more specific terms so that users may know exactly what Google is collecting and why.
Included in Google’s response was a note stating that users could choose to simply not use Google’s products; not a very reassuring answer. Currently, users are still complaining about YouTube’s constant requesting that users link their Google+ account to their YouTube account, which is sure to be changed in the near future due to the backlash.
9. Linden Labs and Second Life
Second Life is an mass multiplayer online roleplaying game, or MMORPG, in which the user can create his or her character and dream house, life, and job with little to no restraints. Want to be a ten foot tall lizard man who wears diapers and runs a pink-themed pegasus stable? Done. Want to be a big breasted 20-something who lives a lavish life of private jets and millionaire mansions? Easy as that. Second Life has grown so popular that over 400,000 users are regularly logging on to live their fantasy lives and some users even make a pretty decent living from creating in-game content such as houses, clothing and vehicles and then selling those items to other users for real money.
So when Linden Labs, owner of Second Life, changed their Terms of Service to claim rights over “all or ay portion of your User Content (and derivative works thereof), for any purpose whatsoever in all formats,” many people responsible for the over US$5 million exchanged yearly via the game quit entirely. Although many speculate that this was an attempt to mimic Google in its attempt to streamline all information across all of its products, critics called the move “short-sighted” and some hundreds of users put content-creation on hold until the matter was resolved. Which it hasn’t been. Even larger content creators such as popular 3D content marketplace Renderosity has fled the service, stating that “Second Life’s new TOS conflicts with our Renderosity license” and prevented any Renderosity content from being used in the game whatsoever. This is just another instance of fine print causing detrimental changes to a business instead of doing the protecting it was originally intended for.
10. A Watchdog Site Rises as a Result
After multiple disturbing - and disturbingly secretive - TOS changes from large companies including Google, Facebook, and mainly Instagram, an important site has been borne from the controversy: Docracy’s Terms of Service Tracker. Similar to Github’s ‘data-tree’ style of storing and displaying new information, the TOS Tracker allows the user to view a timeline of changes to the fine print in any one company’s Terms of Service.
This site is extremely helpful in more than one way. Not only does it save consumers the time it takes to thumb through extensive TOS documents, but it’s also already brought to attention some strange changes in fine print, namely that of the IRS. Why does the IRS’ privacy policy change every few weeks to reflect different ways of dating documents? From “2012-08-23″ to “23 Aug 2012″ and back again, The Verge notes that there’s no clear reason why the IRS oscillates between these two methods and refused to comment on it, too. Kind of creepy.
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