When asked to accept terms of use and privacy policies that state +it will to remove rights I otherwise had or accept unreasonable terms +undermining my privacy, I choose away the service. I simply do not +have the conscience to accept terms I have no indention of upholding. +But how are the system and service providers to know how many people +they scared away? Normally I just quietly walk away. But todya, I +tried a new approach. I sent the following email (removing the +specifics, as I am not out to take the specific service in question) +to the service provider I decided to drop, to at least give them one +data point on how many users are unhappy with their terms:
+ ++From: Petter Reinholdtsen ++ +
Subject: When terms of use turn users away +
To: [contact@some.site] +
Date: Sat, 07 Dec 2019 16:30:56 +0100 + +Dear [Site Owner],
+ +I was eager to test the system, as it seemed like a fun and +interesting application of [some] technology, but after reading the +terms of use and privacy policy on <URL: +https://www.[some.site]/terms-of-use > and <URL: +https://www.[some.site]/privacy-policy > I want you to know that I +decided to turn away. There were several provisions in the terms and +policy turning me off, but the final term that convinced me was being +asked to sign away my right to reverse engineer.
+ +-- +
+
Happy hacking +
Petter Reinholdtsen
I do not expect much to come out of it, but sharing it here in case +others want to give something similar a try too. If companies +discover their terms scare away enough people, perhaps they will be +improved...
+