Terms of service

Terms of service (also known as terms of use and terms and conditions, commonly abbreviated as ToS or TOS and TOU) are rules by which one must agree to abide in order to use a service. Terms of service can also be merely a disclaimer, especially regarding the use of websites.

The Terms of Service Agreement is mainly used for legal purposes by websites and internet service providers that store a user's personal data, such as e-commerce and social networking services. A legitimate terms-of-service agreement is legally binding and may be subject to change.

A terms of service agreement typically contains sections pertaining to one or more of the following topics:

A 2013 documentary, Terms and Conditions May Apply, publicized issues in Terms of service. It was reviewed by 54 professional critics, and won as Best Feature Documentary at the Newport Beach Film Festival 2013, and as Best Documentary at the Sonoma Valley Film Festival 2013.

Clickwrapped.com rates 15 companies on their policies and practices, with respect to: using users' data, disclosing users' data, amending the terms, closing users' accounts, requiring arbitration, fining users, and clarity.

Terms of Service; Didn't Read is a group effort which rates 67 companies' terms of service and privacy policies, though their site says the ratings are "outdated." They also have browser addons which deliver the ratings while at the website of a rated company. Members of the group score each clause in each Terms of service document, but "the same clause can have different scores depending on the context of the services it applies to." The Services tab lists companies in no apparent order, with brief notes about significant clauses from each company. In particular, competitors are not listed together so that users could compare them. A link gives longer notes. It does not typically link to the exact wording from the company. The Topics tab lists topics (like Personal Data or Guarantee), with brief notes from some companies about aspects of the topic.

TOSBack.org, supported by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, lists changes in terms and policies sequentially, 10 per page, for 160 pages, or nearly 1,600 changes, for "many online services." There does not seem to be a way to find all changes for a particular company, or even which companies they tracked in any time period. They link to Terms of Service; Didn't Read, though that typically does not have any evaluation of the most recent changes listed at TOSBack.org.

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