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0 pointskamjam13y ago0 comments

I think the result is that there really needs to be an effort on the part of these online service providers to clarify their terms and make human-readable summaries of users' rights/licenses so that everyone understands where they stand contractually.

There was a post on HN quite some time ago about the Terms of Service agreement on http://500px.com/terms, take a look. I really like what and how they have laid it out. It's a really good idea and wish more companies would do this. I for one skim over the ToS, esp for free online services, and although I think many of us are the same we may start to read them more carefully from now on.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3831357

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Gormo13y ago· 1 in thread

It does seem as though they acknowledge that most users won't read or completely understand the entire terms, and invite users to rely on the summarized terms instead. So if there were ever litigation that involved careful interpretation of the terms, might the "basically" sections be construed as estoppel and override the main text?

If so, doesn't this make the summarized text the actual controlling terms of service, leaving full "legalese" to clarify ambiguities only to the extent that is consistent with the "basically" sections?

kamjamOP13y ago

Not sure, there is quite a few comments on the original hn article. I think the crux of it is that the "basically" and effectively summarize the point without trying to sneak something in which the "basically" does not cover. I think it would very much depend on you ToS if you are able to use this. I'd imagine the likes of Facebook have such complex ToS that they could not effectively summarize like this without missing out on a lot of important detail.

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