MediaTech Law

By MIRSKY & COMPANY, PLLC

We’ve Updated our Terms of Use!

Posted July 26, 2017 by Andrew Mirsky 0

Why are they sending me this information, and what am I supposed to do with it? You’ve just received an email like the one below from Uber, or from one of your various subscription services, credit card companies, banks, ISPs or any of a zillion different web applications:

SUBJECT: We’ve Updated our Terms of Use

Hi Andrew, we’ve been able to bring Uber to more than 400 cities in 72 countries. And that’s in just a little over 6 years. In light of that growth and some changes to our services, we’ve made some updates to our US Terms of Use

They have your attention. You sit up alert in your chair, you rub your eyes and read on. The company then sometimes offers a summary of the changes, often in as cheery and euphemistic a way as possible, with statements like “We revised our arbitration agreement which explains how legal disputes are handled”, or “We have updated our Terms of Use regarding the ways in which we may contact you.” All, no doubt, good things.

Turns out, noone actually reads these updates. That last sentence is not meant as sarcasm. The non-partisan Stanley Roper Polling Organization actually published a study that concluded “Noone actually reads these updates.” Editor’s Note: There is no such organization and there was no such study. Evidently. Although Andrea Peterson reports in The Washington Post about a 2008 study (about privacy policies) that concluded “it would take a staggering 244 hours a year for the average American to read the privacy policies of every site they visit over the course of a year.”

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Website Policies and Terms: What You Lose if You Don’t Read Them

Posted July 15, 2015 by Roman Vayner 0

When was the last time you actually read the privacy policy or terms of use of your go-to social media website or you favorite app? If you’re a diligent internet user (like me), it might take you an average of 10 minutes to skim a privacy policy before clicking “ok” or “I agree.” But after you click “ok,” have you properly consented to all the ways in which your information may be used?

As consumers become more aware of how companies profit from the use of their personal information, the way a company discloses its data collection methods and obtains consent from its users becomes more important, both to the company and to users.  Some critics even advocate voluntarily paying social media sites like Facebook in exchange for more control over how their personal information is used. In other examples, courts have scrutinized whether websites can protect themselves against claims that they misused users’ information, simply because they presented a privacy policy or terms of service to a consumer, and the user clicked “ok.”

The concept of “clickable consent” has gained more attention because of the cross-promotional nature of many leading websites and mobile apps. 

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