terms-of-service
—>Mike says Citibank boosted his interest rate to 20 percent, then said they'd knock off half of it as long as he paid on time and charged at least $750 a month. More »
—>Steve says American Express sent him an off-putting letter letting him know it could refuse to authorize his charge at any time. He writes: More »
—>Today, Reps. Barney Frank and Carolyn Maloney are going to request that the implementation date for the rest of the Credit Card Act's rules be moved to December 1st of this year instead of February 2010, after seeing companies "jacking up their rates and doing other things to their customers in advance of the effective date" all summer, reports Mary Pilon at The Wall Street Journal. More »
—>Instead of cranking out cumbersome terms of service Magna Cartas that only lawyers will actually read, Twitter should follow the lead of Mashable and just come out and say what types of users it's attempting to get rid of. More »
—>Twitter has just posted new terms of service clarifying a few points that have come up now that the service is popular and stuff. They've changed the terms to clarify a few points, such as advertising (they retain the right to advertise) ownership (you own your tweets) and rebroadcast (they can retweet you far and wide.) [Twitter Blog] More »
—>Thanks to an update to Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, there will be one less place for advertisers to encroach onto your private life: your friends' news feeds. More »
—>Facebook has prided itself on forcing users to stick hard and true to their real names, eliminating the zany, anonymous nonsense on other social networking sites. The real-name policy isn't changing, but Facebook is finally letting wacky nicknames into the mix, announcing that it will let you choose an alternate name for your profile page, letting friends who know you only as "Spanky" find you without having to recall your given moniker. The new name can also replace the nine-digit number assigned to you on your Facebook URL. More »
—>It's difficult enough to parse a lengthy TOS for one web-based service, let alone for dozens, or to keep track of when and how they update them. It would be nice if some public-service website out there would keep track of this stuff for all of us, wouldn't it? Last week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) did just that with the launch of TOSBAck.org, "the terms-of-service tracker." It tracks TOS agreements for 44 different services, including Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, Twitter, and eBay. More »
—>Someone hacked reader E's account on the adult site ImLive.com and bought up $450 worth of credits. By the time E. caught the charge, half of the credits had already been used. When E. informed the site that he was planning to file a chargeback with his credit card company, he was warned that doing so would be "considered a serious violation of our terms of use." The site's suggested alternative was simple: they would restore the used credits, and E. could watch lots and lots of porn. More »
—>When voting ended yesterday on the Facebook terms of service, around 600,000 people had voted, and about 70% of those votes were cast for the new documents drafted over the past couple of months. Although the voting total was nowhere near the 30% of active Facebook users that Facebook said would be required, the site is still considering validating the vote and implementing the new terms after the audit is complete. More »
—>You've got about a day and a half left to cast your vote for which Terms of Service you'd prefer Facebook go with—the one written in September 2008 without user input, or the new one they've drafted over the last month based on suggestions from the Facebook community. More »
We are open to putting the documents up to a vote. The rules people must do when on the site and what we must do, a two way thing. There will be Comment periods, a council that will help on future revisions. More »
—>Now that Facebook has said they're drafting a new Terms of Service based on community input, that community has eagerly put forth their proposals in the Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities Facebook group. Forum admin Julius Harper went through the 27 pages of feedback and pulled out the three major areas the community seemed most concerned about. Here's what the people are demanding: More »
Here's a little media whoring for ya. Consumerist's Ben Popken was interviewed on the NBC Nightly News this evening. We were hoping Brian Williams would say the word "Consumerist" so we could somehow capture it and make it our ringtone, but alas. Not to be. More »
—>It appears in the wake of global attention and outcry, Facebook has, as of at least 12:27 am, reverted back to the previous Terms of Service. Phew, now we can all go back to sending each other digital cupcakes without Big Brother watching us. This is a temporary move until Facebook can draft a new Terms of Service that addresses the users' concerns. CEO Zuckerberg wrote a new blog post, and Facebook spokesperson Barry Schnitt released this statement: More »
