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stories filed under: "terms of use"
Too Much Free Time

Too Much Free Time

by Mike Masnick

Thu, Jul 9th 2009 9:42am


Filed Under:
terms of use

Companies:
twitter, wal-mart



Why Does Wal-Mart Need A 3,379-Word Terms Of Use For Its Twitter Account?

from the someone-please-explain dept

Twitter only gives you 140-characters, of course, but what do you do if you're an old-school company that's been around for ages and is used to legalizing everything? Apparently, you create a 3,379-word terms of use for your Twitter account. Boing Boing points us to Wal-Mart's Twitter Terms of Use, which is really impressive if only in that if it were Twittered in 140-character increments it would take about 165 separate tweets. But, honestly, I can't figure out who this Terms of Use is directed at. It can't be those who read the various Twitter feeds from Wal-Mart employees, since most of them will never even come to this page at all (they're just following on Twitter, not on Wal-Mart's site). It's unlikely that it's for the Wal-Mart employees directly, as one assumes they don't need a public Terms of Use. So what's its purpose?

30 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Too Much Free Time

Too Much Free Time

by Mike Masnick

Fri, Apr 4th 2008 3:49pm


Filed Under:
contracts, eulas, isps, terms of use

Companies:
verizon



AP Examines Just How Ridiculous ISP Contracts Are

from the just-so-you-know dept

We recently learned that customers of Verizon's FiOS service don't get to see the full terms of service they're agreeing to until after it's been installed. But, of course, no one actually reads those kinds of things, because if you did, you'd probably never agree to it. To help you out, the Associated Press took some time to read through various ISP end user license agreements (EULAs) and discovered that ISPs put a ton of ridiculous stuff in the fine print, which is basically to give them many different options to kick you off if they suddenly decide you've become a problem. Or, in some cases, it's because lawyers want to protect the ISPs from ridiculous lawsuits, which leads them to put in clauses warning customers that the ISP (in this case, Verizon) doesn't own the internet, so that people know they can't sue Verizon for something that happens online. Verizon recently removed that clause, apparently realizing that it was a bit extraneous.

9 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
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