User Agreements Are Betraying You

The user agreement has become a potent symbol of our asymmetric relationship with technology firms. For most of us, it’s our first interaction with a given company. We sign up and are asked to read the dreaded user agreement — a process that we know signifies some complex and inconveniently detrimental implications of using the service, but one that we choose to ignore. Our privacy hangs in the balance, yet we skim to the end of those tedious terms and conditions just so we can share that photo, or send a group message, or update our operating system… It’s not our fault. These agreements aren’t designed in a way that would allow us to properly consider the risks we’re taking. Tech companies have no incentive to change them. Lawmakers don’t seem to know what the alternatives are. But that doesn’t change the reality: User agreements are a legal and ethical trap, and they betray the trust of users from the very start. Privacy policies are useful governance documents. But users should be protected regardless of what these policies say or how long or clear they are. Tech companies shouldn’t be allowed to launder the risk of disclosure onto users by engineering permission for dubious data practices. And if platforms like Facebook want to invite the trust of users, they should be required to respect the faith we place in them.

[Woodrow Hartzog is Professor of Law and Computer Science at Northeastern University School of Law and College of Computer and Information Science]