Is it just me or is everything updating its TOS agreement right now?
Almost every account and subscription service I have has pushed a TOS or privacy policy update in the last couple weeks. I remember this happening around the time the EU enacted their cookies/advertising laws about a decade ago. And obviously companies update independently from time to time. But this legitimately feels like a couple dozen emails from all different kinds of services all updating/changing things in response to some external influence or event. Anyone else have a similar experience and/or have any idea what have been the "cause"?
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I was wondering the same thing. I checked my email, and over the past month I've received an email about policy changes from:
Discord
Anthropic (Claude)
Nintendo
YouTube
Meta
Airbnb
Microsoft
I don't think it can be just a coincidence. At least a couple of them specifically mention the UK’s Online Safety Act so maybe that's the reason?
I think this is the most likely culprit for the very recent uptick im noticing and trying to articulate with this post.
I wish ToS;dr (Terms of Service; Didn't Read) had a changelog for when companies made changes.
https://opentermsarchive.org/en/
Coverage is not super good, though. It's open to contributions of services and content selectors.
My bank is doing that
Checks headquarter location of various tech companies "USA"
Checks recent events in the US
Click on 2024 Presidential Election
Oh... Oooohhh 👀
My first thought lol
I think you’re just noticing now. This continually happens as companies get sued for harming people, and they adjust to not get sued.
TOS are always updated due to lawsuits, since companies always try to grab the maximum profit irrespective of the human cost, until people sue them. That’s always been the case.
e: sometimes products are straight-up pulled from the market for killing people. Look up videos of old products that are illegal now, like uranium in child’s chemistry sets or lawn darts.
Yeah, i always make sure to get my kids the lawn darts WITHOUT uranium.
Without?? Back in my days, we walked 15 miles for uranium lawn darts. In the snow. Without shoes. Both ways!
Amazon emailed me to let me know my prime invite (I’m not the prime Prime member) is being cancelled next month, so I have to get my own prime account. And then Spotify emailed about their greedy-ass decision to copycat Netflix and restrict account sharing between different locations.
Timing sucks for me because my health insurance plan is tripling and the state took away my cell phone allowance.
Thanks, Trump!
Best opportunity to cancel Amazon Prime
Yoho yoho!
Nintendo says it's because of recent changes in EU law regarding generated data and the closure of the EU's online dispute resolution platform. Ianal.
Gotta keep adding binding arbitration to every ToS. Every single one.
Yep, had to delete my notes APP too, because it wanted to hold my Notes ransom until I agree to let all of them be processed.
Good that I already switched to Über notes once this AI became implemented in everything
You might want to host a memos page for note-taking they'll always try to pull this on you unless you self-host
I have to use Hand written notes, so I'm using Saber Notes with my own Nextcloud as backup
The rich of the world are trying to pivot their wealth into setting up an automated form of global fascism where they control all resources.
Planatir is the tool that is spearheading this project
This is what they are doing instead of allowing wealth redistribution to fix our economies.
Yeah cuz of age verification laws and AI... even VINTED changed its TOS in favour of AI
A lot of them have been adding terms about LLMs and using your data for them.
I noticed discord and google doing it. Didn't think much of it but maybe you are onto something
Yes, it's because of enshittification. Companies need to change their TOS to allow them to
exploit you moremonetise their core assets.Might have something to do with a bunch of countries wanting to start implementing age verification standards.
I felt this way a few months ago. So many emails.
I started noticing around when OpenAI did their chat got debut
The EU and the US FTC have been throwing out suits lately. It's affecting corporate marketing, so everyone is rushing to adapt before the dust is settled.