Friday, April 20, 2018

Uber, Paypal Face Reckoning Over Opaque ‘Terms and Conditions’ - Bloomberg

EULA obfuscation as a legal specialty is perhaps no longer a solid career choice...
"Companies are scrambling to ensure their user agreements comply with the law, says Julian Saunders, founder of Port.im, a British software maker that helps businesses adapt to GDPR. But he says many website owners aren’t yet explicit enough in stating why they’re collecting a consumer’s information, which other companies might gain access to it, and how people can ensure their data are deleted if they request it. Saunders says he’s signed up 100 businesses for the service and urges them to bend over backward in helping users understand the details. “Areas that used to get hidden in the small print of terms and conditions should now be exposed,” he says.

Martin Garner, an analyst at technology consultancy CCS Insight, suggests companies walk readers through their policies step by step. That way they could opt out of selected provisions—limiting, for instance, third parties that can gain access to the data or restricting the kinds of information companies may stockpile. Much of what’s in the terms and conditions might be affected by the settings a user chooses, and including that information in the initial agreement unnecessarily complicates the document. “Users typically only have the choice of accepting the terms and conditions in their entirety or not using the service at all,” Garner says. Companies must “pay much closer attention to explaining to users how their data will be stored and used and getting them to consent to that explicitly.”"
Uber, Paypal Face Reckoning Over Opaque ‘Terms and Conditions’ - Bloomberg

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