It's their service, they're bearing the weight of being your "straw person," they can do what they want. I see nothing wrong with them writing their terms of service to reflect their values, and conveying them it in a cheeky manner like this.
this is a transparent gotcha attempt, op wrote "what they've decided are reasonable terms of service" and you pretend that op wrote about their own defintion of reasonable
I feel I only need to fear their intention, not their wording
I'm leery of their capriciousness. They obviously have no qualms about changing their terms of service on a whim, giving folks only weeks to comply, and not accepting any compromise. That is simply not the type of folk I like to do business with.
I actually don't really support these movements. I would prefer that we entirely deligitimize the notion of 'terms of service' having any measure of enforceability or weight.
No, I have not read your terms and I do not agree with them. I do, however, reject the legitimacy of their use and will happily check a box that lets me proceed unmolested.
And by continuing to provide your service to me, you agree that that my implicit rejection of your TOS' legitimacy is correct. That attitude from a customer towards every business is just as reasonable as a business expecting every customer to read and implicitly accept their specific and lengthy legal stipulations.
But the over-lawyer-ification and impracticality of opting out of corporate terms of service is an widespread problem. This is an interesting expansion of that problem, so it deserves highlighting.
>The terms of service have become so lengthy and obscure
I don't think it's fair of you to criticize either the length or the obscurity of terms of service. After all, you could replace nearly all of them with:
"
1. We have every right of every kind and can do anything, without being liable for anything.
2. you have no rights of any kind and may do nothing, except those afforded by law, which you hereby waive as far as legally possible.
"
More forward-thinking startups might add something to the effect of "Of course this does not mean we are Satan! We will naturally make an effort to provide roughly the service you have paid for. However, nothing in this section should be construed as a statement that we shall not act like Satan in any particular instance. We reserve the right to be Satan at any time and our sole discretion without providing any prior written warning. You've been warned."
You said it's unethical, and when pressed for an explanation, you merely mentionned that breaking the terms of service make it unethical. Your viewpoint is facile and reduces ethics to a mere red light / green light view of the world.
Terms of service do not suddenly make everything outside them unethical. It can be that when you ponder the power dynamic, and the expectations, that breaking the terms of service is the only ethical choice.
Agreed, they make a good point, however, I think the terms of service are binding, and if what we're doing changes, we _must_ update them. This, of course, does not change the fact that we've collected a lot of data and it would suddenly fall under the new terms of service.
With that said, I actively delete customer data on request, and a terms of service change like this _might_ (very reasonably) prompt someone to request their data to be deleted, and since terms of service are not typically immediately effective without consent, I feel strongly that I would make sure I could remove data for people who do not agree with the new terms of service. What I'm saying, is that I would fight very hard for my customers, like, ridiculously hard.
As said above – I am not the CEO – I don't have controlling interest, and there is absolutely some future where the things I said above are impossible to execute. I have not felt that way yet, and I am very conscious of the possibility if that in the future, and will stay vigilant both for my customers and for my own peace of mind to make sure we're always doing the right thing.
You are freeloading no matter how much sophistry you try to cloak it with. They haven’t yet started enforcing their terms of service as strictly as they could but what you’re doing is no different from someone hopping the fare gate on a subway or bus and claiming it’s okay because the bus was going to run either way.
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