Novels of Service

Like almost everyone else, I’ve never taken the time to read the terms of service when I buy a phone or download a new app. My logic has always been that if there was something alarmingly malicious in the terms of service of a popular company, it would come to light and the company would lose its reputation. I have no idea if that’s true or not, but I definitely don’t have 40 extra minutes a day to read arguably the most boring texts ever written. But reading about how many terms of service we agree to nowadays sparked a lot of thoughts and curiosities about the digital world.

What’s the point of having users agree to terms of service if they don’t ever know what they’re agreeing to? Is it a manipulation tactic to get users to give up rights they would never knowingly give up? Or is it just a formality that allows companies to collect data to improve their product? Either way, I think it’s definitely motivated by profit to a degree (as are most things). Going through the sources for this week, I was glad to see there’s a third party service that makes sense of the legal jargon for common users. With the number of websites and products I use, I’m pretty sure every single piece of personal information about my digital footprint belongs to someone else. Honestly, I’m not too concerned about it because I don’t see how or why they could use it against me, but I am concerned about identity theft and companies being hacked by people with malintent. At this point, there isn’t anything I can do about other than strengthen some of my passwords; my information is already out there. It bothers me how manipulative companies can be. Instead of summarizing their terms of service for their users, they throw 20 page documents at them. Deceitful advertising, claims not backed by real statistics or science, and a lack of communication about important information make modern businesses extremely manipulative. I personally believe there should be way more regulations in place to protect people from businesses looking to take advantage of their users for profit. One step that could be taken is to require companies to provide third-party approved, readable terms of service. I doubt that will happen anytime soon, but as the internet continues to expand, it needs to be tamed.