Breaking down the ToS – because… it’s important

Historically, terms of service were considered the gateway to using someone else’s platform or app. To what end? What exactly are you signing? What rights and data are you giving away.

I want to start with RealVNC. Why? While tinkering with a raspberry pi 3, I wanted to use my pi locally without any outside wifi or internet. Why not? So, upon connecting to my server (not online), I tried to VNC in. Shouldn’t be an issue, right? But it was! RealVNC would not load unless it was connected to the internet and could “phone home”. I beg your pardon.

This is when I started to research alternatives to the not so transparent “free” application gathering telemetry data and refusing to load unless online.

SMH.

Remember, if the product or service is free, YOU are the product.

What’s wrong with terms of service. Well, a lot.

  1. You could inadvertently violate terms of service causing a disruption of service.
  2. You could be signing away your rights to your content, your data
  3. Terms of service could have some hidden elements you are not aware of.

I started reading Terms of Service many years ago when this happened to me. My geocities site was unavailable to me because apparently I violated the terms of service, but did not ethically or legally incorrect.

My personal Terms of Service Experience: Geocities 2000 – The DMCA

My personal Terms of Service Experience: Geocities 2000 – The DMCA

Case in point, you sign up for geocities. It’s free! woohoo. You get an awesome handle and space, let’s say DMCA. The year is 2000. You own the rights to a book you wrote and is being distributed called… “DMCA”. You place a digital copy of your book which you have all rights to on your geocities account. You are contacted by Geocities about a possible copyright violation for publicly posting a book about the DMCA. Ironic. Yes. It gets better. You ignore the notification about the copyright violation because you violated NOTHING.

You lose your Geocities account. Not because you committed any crime but because you violated the terms of service.