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george's picks
Terms and conditions are generally just a scroll-through endeavor.
We know we are responsible for blah-de-blah and we can't do xyz and so on, those are pretty standard with all terms and conditions. But do you ever wonder if we're being taken advantage of or else made fun of in that text?
For the most part would our lives change if we actually read the terms and conditions? Probably not. But we might illuminate some things we never knew about that company before.
u/AboutAweekAggo asked:
For the few that have actually read any terms and conditions, what sneaky things have you found?
Here were some of those answers.
This Time For Africa
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I was stoned and downloaded a mobile game some years ago and decided to read the terms and conditions. It was like 20 pages and mostly had to do with privacy and micro transaction stuff. In the back half a paragraph was the lyrics to ToTos Africa.
Must Love Dogs
At a gun range one time I saw that if I yelled out "I love dogs!" my time and anything I buy is half price. I immediately did so, startling my best friend. That was awesome.
The contract to a job I had working in the desert warned about the frequency of alien attacks. I was disappointed to go a year and a half without any, though.
Extra Baggage
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Gamestation once made an "Immortal Soul Clause" on April Fool's day, to prove that no-one actually reads the terms and conditions. It read " By placing an order via this Web site on the first day of the fourth month of the year 2010 Anno Domini, you agree to grant us a non transferable option to claim, for now and for ever more, your immortal soul. "
1 + 1 Equals Your Lingerie
I had a Victoria's Secret coupon that said Canadians are required to pass a math question or test in order to be eligible for the discount.
I think I still have it at my desk - my job in part is writing terms and conditions, agreements, and disclosures for the bank I work at so I actually do read a lot of T&Cs in homage to the amount of time my colleagues in the field put into writing 18 pages no one but examiners read. The Canadian math requirement is the strangest I've ever seen.
Deviant Indeed
DeviantArt's ToS is basically a contract allowing them to print, reproduce, and profit from your art (if they so choose) without needing your permission or consent.
Usually this takes the form of ads or contests, where they'll be used in public displays. If you post works that show a high level of technical skill, then you need to either sign it or use a big ol' watermark.
Someone DID Write This
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Thank you to customer for actually reading our terms and conditions. Send us an E-mail with the following content and we will send you a free box of chocolates.
They did indeed send chocolate.
Weird Flex But Ok
My boss told me about how it was important to read everything, even the terms and conditions.
When you go to an iPhone's license page (or something else, I don't remember), it says that they won't take any responsibility to any shock you received from the phone if it were 5 mm away from you, unless you had something blocking it from your skin, like clothes, or a pocket protector.
Scams Abound
A while ago (~2011) there was a scam "Work from Home" service widely advertised all over Facebook and other places, promising enormous paycheques and a free trial. (It was an opt-out subscription service as you might expect).
Curious as to how the scam worked, I looked at their T&Cs.
There was a clause in there requiring you to pay $10000 in compensation to the company if you filed a chargeback against their fees.
Whilst that would never stand up in court, dealing with debt collectors who might conveniently offer to settle for 'a mere three thousand' would be all sorts of hell.
Protected From Myself
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As someone who had to get a privacy policy and read the thing, as far as I know I'm not allowed to use my own service. According to the legal agreement I got with myself and agreed to, In case I do know that I access the service against what's written in the privacy policy I should contact myself by email letting me know that so I can erase any private data I got on myself. If I refuse to erase the data I think I can sue myself.
Send help
Would You Say That's Likely?
Amazon's AWS Service Terms contain a clause pertaining to a zombie apocalypse.
No, really:
However, this restriction will not apply in the event of the occurrence (certified by the United States Centers for Disease Control or successor body) of a widespread viral infection transmitted via bites or contact with bodily fluids that causes human corpses to reanimate and seek to consume living human flesh, blood, brain or nerve tissue and is likely to result in the fall of organized civilization.
Past The Time Of Dying
Royal Caribbean has a clause in their Cruise Ticket Contract stating that that they are granted the exclusive rights to any videos, photographs, audio recordings, etc, taken of the guest during or in connection with the cruise "throughout the universe and in perpetuity". Well-played, RC. That's thinking ahead.
Hello, Neighbor
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Some time ago, when Twitch was airing Mister Rogers Neighborhood, they were having a contest for streamers. They were giving away a sweet purple cardigan.
If you hosted the channel, you would get 1 point per minute, for each viewer watching it through your stream. Obviously the biggest streamers with thousands of viewers would win. Except, that wasn't the case. The streamers who read the T&Cs realized they had to do a few specific things, in order to qualify. I enjoy reading them, so when I found it, I told a friend/streamer about it. With his ~100 viewer average, he managed to get enough points to win one of the cardigans.
Simple Solution
My son got a job as a camp counselor at an upscale NY summer camp. The contract stated that they were not responsible for any injury or his death. My lawyer wife crossed it all out and initialed it. There was no objection from the camp. Since then, I have crossed out many things in contracts and never had anyone bat an eye. Obviously, most don't read the contracts after they are signed.
Satan's Company
The contract when you buy a game online at GameStation includes the legal right for them to claim your immortal soul.
"By placing an order via this Web site on the first day of the fourth month of the year 2010 Anno Domini, you agree to grant Us a non transferable option to claim, for now and for ever more, your immortal soul. Should We wish to exercise this option, you agree to surrender your immortal soul, and any claim you may have on it, within 5 (five) working days of receiving written notification from gamesation.co.uk or one of its duly authorised minions."
So yeah, thousands of people sold their soul to GameStation.
You Own Nothing, Jon Snow
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In the original and probably current, chrome eula , google tried to claim that anything passing through their browser in either direction was their intellectual property.
Refuse to use chrome to this day because of that.
We wont even get into how their search engine is a giant spying program.
Spies
Snapchat's privacy policy shows the crazy amount of information collected for usage stats, like apps installed, the browser you use, the language, even the time zone. Putting those last two together gives a decent idea of your location even if you don't have that turned on. Then there's also the fact that they use the accelerometer and compass data. It just feels like the only possible reason to need that much data is to track people.