Omri Ben-Shahar on the Failure of Software Terms of Service Agreements
Why Do We Blindly Sign Terms Of Service Agreements?
CORNISH: So the idea of mandated disclosure people might recognize as the terms and conditions. And you've studied this issue, at one point actually printing out the Apple iTunes contract, right? What did that look like?
SHAHAR: Yes, after I received one of their new versions on my iPhone. When I scrolled down and it said, page 1 of 55, I emailed it to myself, printed it out, and it looked like a 30-feet long monster of eight-point font. So to display its enormity, I hung it from the roof of the building of University of Chicago Library, for all to see, to try to exhibit the length and the pointlessness of trying to read the disclosure that we receive from all sorts of services.
CORNISH: Pointless, even for an expert in contract law?
SHAHAR: It is pointless, probably even for the lawyers that drafted it because when I looked at that particular version, I found many typos. It looked like probably not even the disclosers read their own texts carefully.
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