With a slew of media reports last week, Samsung joined a long list of companies exposed for creepy terms of use clauses. In order to set up its voice recognition feature, Samsung Smart TV listens to your every word and sends it over the Internet for analysis.
The Terms of Use warn “personal or other sensitive information” will be “captured and transmitted to a third party.”
Ugh!
But Samsung’s terms are just the last in a long line of chilling End User License Agreements (EULA) we clicked through without reading them.
Skipping right to the “Agree” checkbox may never ever cause a problem. Past media reports show it seldom does. What’s scary about EULAs is the potential for misuse. Many companies carved out so many advantages for themselves, it’s hard to foresee how far they could take them.
Think of these examples:
Un-suable
Most common trick companies pull with their terms of use is denying you a class action lawsuit.
The clause would say something like:
“You and _______ are each waiving the right to a trial by jury or to participate in a class action. Any dispute, claim, or controversy shall be determined by binding arbitration.”
A Google search of the exact phrase “waiving the right to a trial” plus the words “terms of use” returns over 50,000 results, including Netflix, PayPal, Sony—the list goes on.
And unlike many judges, arbitrators don’t tend to favor the little man.
Sony lets you opt out of the arbitration clause if you snail mail them a letter within 30 days.
Linked-Out
Do you need somebody’s work phone number? No problem. You look the person up on Linkedin, copy-paste the phone number … Wait a moment. Its terms of use say that:
“You agree that you will not … [c]opy or use the information, content or data of others available on the Services (except as expressly authorized).”
The User Agreement doesn’t seem to authorize users to copy phone numbers in any way.
You can export your Linkedin contacts. That way you at least get their names and emails. No phone numbers though.
