Just yesterday, you were fiddling with your phone and visited a food delivery website. You hit the REGISTER button almost immediately as the service had the add-ons you were seeking. And before you submit that registration form, you check the “I accept this site’s terms and conditions” box.
But did you really read the site’s T&Cs before you ticked that accept checkbox? There’s a high chance that you didn’t. Not to worry, though. You ain’t alone in this. There are millions (sorry, billions) of people around the world that accept terms without even reading a line of them.
This guide will show you what terms are actually hiding in those super long documents called Terms of Service. And boy, are there some interesting and weird things in the mix. Let’s get going.
Getting Started: What Does Terms of Service Mean?
Terms of service (also known as TOS) are the rules that you need to obey when you visit a website or open an application on your smartphone or PC. You can see them as the rulebook you must follow when playing a poker game with your folks. All of you must agree to the rules before a session can start so that no one feels cheated when play begins.
You’ll come across a TOS any time you register on something new like X, Reddit, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, or Spotify. And you know what’s funny? People scroll to the end of the document and hit the I Agree button without reading a line of it. They just assume that the company has their best interests at heart.
How Long Are Terms of Service Pages?
People don’t read the TOS of the services they use. A survey with a sample size of 2,000 consumers established that 91% of them consented to T&Cs without bothering to read them.
But this isn’t because they’re lazy. Rather, it’s due to the fact that these documents are very long. You’ll find variants that are 100 times the length of this article you’re currently reading. Oof!
We aren’t just saying these things to get you hyped up. We’ve got some facts to boot. A report showed that Microsoft’s terms and conditions came in at 15,260 words. And if you read at a fast pace of 240 words per minute, it’d take you 63.5 minutes to read the TOS from start to finish. That’s longer than some movies these days.
If you took out time to read the terms of service of every site and app you’ve ever registered on, you would’ve wasted hundreds of hours reading them all from the beginning to the end. This is valuable time that you would’ve used to learn a high-paying skill or even bond with friends and family. So, it’s no surprise that people rarely read them.
Why Do People Find It So Hard to Read TOS Documents?
The terms of service that some companies have in place aren’t just long. Reading through them can see you scratching your head occasionally. This is because they’ve got some big words and complex sentences. Is this surprising? Not at the slightest because they were written by a lawyer and not a regular person.
To get the average American to understand a text block, it must be written in sixth to eighth grade English. But the reality is that most entities require you to read their terms and conditions at a high school level. It gets even worse as companies such as Facebook have T&Cs that demands the reading level of a college graduate.
So, what does this mean? Most people will find it hard to read terms and conditions. And what’s more frustrating is the fact that the companies behind them aren’t willing to dumb them down for the average person.
DID YOU KNOW: Something weird happened back in 2010. A company called Gamestation decided to change their terms and conditions as a way to get back at customers for April Fool’s day. They said that they could claim your immortal soul if you bought stuff from them online on the 1st of April. Over 7,500 people made a purchase on the site that day. This technically meant that they would’ve lost their souls forever if it wasn’t a prank to show that no one really cared about terms and conditions.
What Do You Actually Agree to?
To complete the registration process at crypto casinos accepting VPNs or a company providing a delivery, streaming, or dating service, you have to accept their terms and conditions. But have you ever asked yourself what you’re agreeing to? Well, these are the usual suspects:
#1 Your Information
This is usually stated at the top of the TOS page. It shows you how the company in question wants to use the information you give to them.
Read through and you’ll see that they have the right to sell it to other companies or use it to create tailored ads just for you. Some apps could even go further to monitor your phone in real-time and ship out any data that comes in.
#2 Your Photos Aren’t Really Yours
This particular TOS is common on apps where you can share photos. It shows that the company has got the luxury to delete, repurpose, or publicly display your picture. So, that beautiful selfie you posted on Snapchat could be used on an ad without your consent and compensation.
#3 When Something Goes Wrong
Accepting the terms of some entities means that they don’t shoulder responsibility if anything goes wrong on their platform. For example, if a person hacked your account and made unauthorized transactions, the company can decide not to do anything about it and go scot-free.
What Can You Do?
You might not be able to read every word of a firm’s T&Cs, and that’s fine. Totally. All you’ve got to do is skim through the most important sections of the documents.
This includes your privacy, how your information is being used, and who takes responsibility when something that’s no fault of yours takes place. If you still can’t understand it, don’t be shy to ask someone for help interpreting it.
Moving on, always make sure that you trust your gut. Don’t register or sign-up for that service if anything feels out of place.
Companies might be making things difficult for users deliberately. But hey, you’re smarter than that!
