TOSBack: EFF's real-time tracker for changes in terms of service on popular Internet sites

The Electronic Frontier Foundation just launched "TOSBack: The Terms-Of-Service Tracker" which gives you realtime feed of the changes to terms of service in 44 online services (you know, all those sites whose terms are "subject to change without notice"). I want one of these that tell you which bits are enforceable.

"Terms of service form the foundation of your relationship with social networking sites, online businesses, and other Internet communities, but most people become aware of these terms only when there's a problem," said EFF Activism and Technology Manager Tim Jones. "We created TOSBack to help consumers monitor terms of service for the websites they use everyday, and show how the terms change over time."
At www.TOSBack.org, you can see a real-time feed of changes and updates to more than three dozen polices from the Internet's most popular online services. Clicking on an update brings you to a side-by-side before-and-after comparison, highlighting what has been removed from the policy and what has been added.

EFF Launches TOSBack - A 'Terms of Service' Tracker for Facebook, Google, eBay, and More

TOSBack | The Terms-Of-Service Tracker

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Pete Hoffman

Well crap.

And I had just picked the name BritneySpearsBatmanPope for my WoW avatar…guess it’s back to the drawing board for me, since all of those are explicitly disallowed…jerks.
jeremynyc

OK, so a quick check of the Facebook and YouTube changes in TOS that they point out makes it clear that a simple automated tool of this is going to be useless–the first has a change to a snail mail address and the second has a change to the date of publication. Nothing else in either has changed.

This is a *great* idea, but it needs a little work on the data vs. information side of things.
bardfinn

“which ones are enforceable” would be legal advice, and I recall some manner of court case in the US regarding automated computer-analytics generating “legal advice”. I recall it was not something the court in question viewed sympathetically.

(But, yeah – if it didn’t involve getting swiped for providing legal advice w/o a license, or getting billed for a lawyer’s time and trouble, such an analysis would be very intelleshtingk.)
EH

I so had this idea 10 years ago, back when eBay had one of the first TOS shitfits.
dumbwhore

I sure wish they were monitoring netflix. Recently netflix has become increasingly insistent that I agree with their new TOS. Yet they don’t want to explain what they changed, just have me read the 30 page agreement.