SCN: Terms of service

Tue Jun 20 13:38:21 PDT 2000

x-no-archive: yes

=======================

Don't get boxed in by changes to your service providers' TOS 
agreement  

by Ed Foster  

(InfoWorld)---Protecting yourself against sneakwrap terms on the 
Internet is simple. All you have to do is spend virtually all your 
online time reading reams of legalese to make sure they haven't 
changed since the last time you were logged in.  

If you don't believe me, go read the posted terms of service, privacy 
policy, acceptable use policy, and so on, of the service you use 
most often. Chances are you'll find that the service provider 
reserves the right to change those terms at any time, and the mere 
posting of the new terms is sufficient notice to you. The provider can 
start charging you more while giving you less or start selling 
information about you to whomever it likes. And your continued use 
of the service is deemed sufficient to indicate approval of the new 
terms, even if you didn't happen to notice the change.  

Part of this trend that I find particularly worrisome is the way that 
"free" Internet services are adopting the harshest sneakwrap terms 
of all. The TOS (terms of service) for Winfire's FreeDSL that we 
discussed last week are the scariest I've seen in their repeated 
assertion of the company's right to change what you're getting or 
what you're paying for it at any time. And this even applies to 
FreeDSL's extended services for which there is a charge. The TOS 
very explicitly state that the company will charge a $200 
cancellation fee even when the customer is terminating due to "a 
change in features by Winfire ... or by reason of a modification of 
terms by Winfire ... ." (They do promise to give extended service 
customers 30 days' notice of such changes via e-mail, but of course 
that promise could be eliminated when they change their terms.)  

FreeDSL isn't the only free service with sneakwrap terms that have 
raised eyebrows. NetZero's legalese defines four different 
documents posted on its site -- its terms and conditions, acceptable 
use guidelines, software license agreement, and privacy statement --
 collectively as NetZero's "Rules." Of course, it goes on to say that 
NetZero can change those Rules and the scope of NetZero at any 
time by posting new terms, and that's the only notice you'll get, and 
so on. And then it adds a kicker: "Each time before using the 
NetZero Services, you agree to review changes to the Rules and, if 
any change is not acceptable to you, you agree to terminate use of 
NetZero Services."  

By my count, those four documents total over 11,000 words. No date 
or other clue in the documents themselves will let you know if it's 
changed since the last time you read it. How long does it take to 
read 11,000 words of thick legalese? I'm not sure, but NetZero users 
who don't spend that time at the beginning of every Internet session 
are violating their agreement with the service. Somehow I doubt this 
is the kind of freedom that the Russian defector in the company's TV 
commercial had in mind.  

Am I being paranoid? Maybe. After all, we haven't seen any of these 
free services actually take advantage of their sneakwrap terms to 
start charging their customers. To do so, as the Winfire official said 
last week, would be tantamount to closing down their business. 
Besides, what do the customers of these free services expect? They 
aren't paying anything, so they shouldn't be surprised if these 
companies take steps to protect themselves against unforeseen 
circumstances. You get what you pay for.  

Based on what we've seen in the past, though, I can't help but think 
that these draconian terms are there to be used. In the last year we 
have seen services that you do pay for such as Excite at Home, 
Cox at Work, and US West try to quietly change their service 
offerings without customers noticing. Yahoo tried to slip its content-
grabbing terms past users of the just-acquired GeoCities last spring. 
And there was the well-publicized case of RealNetworks changing its 
privacy policy after RealJukebox users discovered the program was 
sending personal information about them to the company.  

The RealNetworks example brings us to the heart of the issue 
concerning free services and sneakwrap. There is indeed no such 
thing as a free lunch; the coin with which customers pay for free 
services is the privacy they agree to give up. Just how much 
privacy they surrender -- be it ads displayed on their system, usage 
information shared with partners, or whatever -- is spelled out in 
privacy statements. Providers of free services are making it clear by 
their aggressive sneakwrap language that they want the right to 
change those privacy polices without notice.  

Free-service providers that are unable to turn a profit -- and there 
will be many -- won't have to start charging to open a new revenue 
stream. They just need to change their privacy policy so they can 
sell more information about their customers. Companies that do 
charge have done it; why expect companies that don't to behave any 
better?  

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