Topic

Terms of Service - changing without letting us know. Please change it?

About the Terms of Service:
"- It is your responsibility to regularly check the Site to determine if there have been changes to these Terms of Service and to review such changes"

I would really really really really want TS to change this, to make us agree again when it changes.
Could you pretty please? The way it is now is very.. very... don't know the word for it, but I don't like it. :( It makes me feel tricked, makes me feel uneasy.
It's like signing a contract, and then the other company can change it without you knowing it or approving of it again. If a contract is changed, all who signed it should be informed that it is changed, and asked if they want to sign again.
I don´t consider it an agreement anymore if the original text is changed, the agreement is then nullified imo. How can I agree with something I haven't read? And which I haven't read because I didn't know it was changed? It's very unfriendly to be actually forcing/asking us to check the ToS each time we log in.
(Obviously, I didn't read it very well when I signed up here, else I would have gotten it out of it. But I just glanced through it as it is such a wall of text. Not the worst I've seen with legal terms all over it, but also not the best readable I've seen.)

It saddens me to see that TS chose this form of ToS, and really hope you will change it so that players have to agree anew each time the ToS has changed, even if it is because a sentence was rewritten. A small message when we log in that the ToS has changed and that we can read it here and should agree again to it is all I'm asking.

Please, change it?

Posted 18 months ago by Miriamele Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

1 2 Next
  • Trav, I hope you meant "comma" placements. I really don't want to be placed in a coma for any reason :P
    Posted 18 months ago by Essie Kitten Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It's a type-o, but I kinda like it... coma placement kind of fits if you think about vacation status, or even reading this thread, as entering a coma :D
    Posted 18 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Wauw, what a discussion while I was asleep/getting up :)...

    First: I saw Glitch as a mmo, and most mmo's I played are downloaded, installed, patched etc - and those come with a new ToS everytime it changes.
    Glitch is a browsergame, though it doesn't feel like it and that made me treat it like one of the downloadable mmo's. For sites you indeed don't get warnings of changes.
    I'd like what Cerulean said, to be able to opt out of receiving notices of changes of the ToS.

    As Travinara said, I don't think TS will do "bad" stuff to the ToS but to me it would just be the proper thing to do to notify people of changes. Just like it's nice that when you edit a post you state what you edited. (spelling, added, removed...) that is very common and sort of an unspoken rule. So why not with the ToS?
    I don't expect it to change daily, or weekly. A ToS isn't meant to be changed a lot, and if it is changed it's mostly some relevant stuff that has changed. Clicking on agree once a month / once ever half year / once every year isn't that much of a problem I think?
    It would be a bad sign if they had to change the ToS daily. Ofcourse, now during beta is another story, and maybe a few changes right after it goes live and there's a rush of people joining, but after that I don't think the ToS will change that often.
    Posted 18 months ago by Miriamele Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It was my understanding that in the early days of the web, there wasn't an elegant way to inform users of TOS changes. Email is the most basic option, but people don't like being spammed. But nowadays there's many other ways to do it, and my favourite is one where the site recognises the last time you logged in and gives you a notice the next time you enter, if things have changed. That way, you don't have to deal with it until you actually want to use the site.

    It's just one more click, no big deal, and this way we can be aware of what's going on. TS seems like a company that is not likely to go evil, but this isn't only about protecting users. It's also about keeping order in the game. Suppose I leave for a month, and in the meantime, for whatever reason the TOS changes to disallow something which was previously allowed . I come back clueless, and cause trouble without even knowing it, because I'm not going to even think about re-reading the document! But if there's a pop-up saying, 'hey, the rules have changed since you last played, here's what is different' and I have to click okay, that makes it easier for me to respect the rules and for Tiny Speck not to have to chase me down when I break them unwittingly.

    So I say, yes, please do make us click through every time the TOS changes (and it's not a spelling change or typo fix). One click isn't bad, considering we'll be clicking for hours after that within the game itself, and this probably won't happen often enough to become annoying.
    Posted 18 months ago by Cefeida Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Do you guys actually read every ToS you have to click through? I'm not being snide or sarcastic, I am genuinely curious. I think having to click a button whenever the ToS changes would mean that the majority of players... just click the button without reading the ToS. 

    iTunes ToS comes to mind.  It's, what, 9 pages long?

    So, +1 for what striatic said:

    Dear Tiny Speck,

    Please do not bother me every time you slightly change your TOS.

    That would be annoying, and we all know that the changes would repeatedly be blown out of proportion.

    Sincerely,

    Striatic


    Posted 18 months ago by zeeberk Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If the ToS are changing so often that people get annoyed at being told about it, then there's something wrong. Equally, if i have to maintain my own version control system just to figure what did change, then there's something very wrong.

    It's not a big deal to provide some kind of notification saying "Hey, we updated the ToS. Here's the two line executive summary of what  we did. If you want to go read the whole thing in all it's legalese glory, you can find it over there."
    Posted 18 months ago by dopiaza Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Even the 10,000 angles that be dancing on that proverbial pinhead are becoming weary of the "what if's" of this tread.  But carry on, I'm sure there are many more speculative highways and byways we can plow thorough.  :)
    Posted 18 months ago by MeherMan Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Email spam does annoy me but if I were to receive an email from TS it would, imo, be something of importance simply because they had reason to contact me. If the changes that were made were, in their opinion, great enough to warrant email notification I would not find that objectionable.
    Posted 18 months ago by Leithwyn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • FYI, I'm pretty much w/ striatic & zeeberk, too. Don't wanna know every ding time some tiny thing shifts (a major thing, sure, of course). I personally regulate my own behavior enough that I am 99.9% sure I don't cross the kind of lines ToS's don't want people to (from the few ToS's I have indeed read all of...and nope, not iTunes lately, though I believe I read most of it once; did read the one from last browser-based MMO I played though and most likely will read all of this one "soon" lol). Cheers-y cheers...can't wait to see you all in game later today :D
    Posted 18 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Do you guys actually read every ToS you have to click through? 

    Sometimes. When it's a ToS that regards my behaviour in a community, in an environment maintained by someone else, yes, I want to know the rules and caveats so that I don't get in trouble just because I didn't read them.

    When it's an application that I'll be using on my own computer, like the mentioned iTunes, where no one is witness to my actions and I'm operating in a closed environment, I don't bother.

    Now, I figure a lot of people would just click the button without reading. But at least they're being given a fair heads up that something has changed, and they can only blame themselves later if they find the changes they chose not to read about mess up their gameplay. 

    When you say 'don't bother me with TOS changes, because I don't read the TOS anyway' you are saying you are confident enough in your knowledge of the game to be sure you will neve run afoul of the rules, and that you are also willing to take the risk of not knowing them. (or, if you were evil, you would be saying that you don't care about the rules at all and will play however you see fit whether it breaks them or not. I assume you're the former but you could easily be the latter). That's your choice. But it doesn't mean that communication between Tiny Speck and the players about the TOS is not necessary. It's just something YOU aren't interested in.

    Even if a lot of people aren't interested in reading the TOS at all, I think every company has a responsibility to its users to make them aware of changes in their terms of use. Because even if their users assume the risk of not reading the rules, the company will still enforce them.

    A pop-up notice when the TOS changes is just one, rare, mildly inconvenient click that could prevent a lot of angst. Example:

    "Hey, Glitchizen, you're doing something that's against the rules."
    "I didn't know about this! Why didn't anyone tell me?"
    "Well, it's in the TOS, you should have read it."
    "Was it like that when I signed up???? The date it was published is after I signed up, maybe it changed! I couldn't have known!"
    "Well it says that you should check back periodically, didn't you read that when you first signed up?"
    "No, no one reads these things anyway, so get off my back, it was an honest mistake!"
    "You agreed to the TOS..."
    "Yeah but why didn't anyone tell me it had changed???"

    ...and so ad nauseam.
    Posted 18 months ago by Cefeida Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 dopiaza.
    Posted 18 months ago by Nanookie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Why did only one person acknowledge the idea I suggested that I believe may appease everyone? You know, the one that would satisfy those who want to be notified, and would also satisfy those that DON'T want to be notified?
    Posted 18 months ago by Cerulean Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Cerulean, I think both you and Cefeida had really good suggestions. A discreet notification on the home page for people who have logged in since changes have been made, with a 'Don't bug me about this again' option seems like a good compromise. If there was a brief log-notes-type record of what changes were made, for those who are really curious, even better. I'm not sure why people are so vehemently opposed to greater transparency for those who care at the cost of an extra click on a fairly infrequent basis if a solution is possible that would work for everybody.
    Posted 18 months ago by katlazam Subscriber! | Permalink
  • ...because I forgot to, Cerulean. +1!!!!!!
    Posted 18 months ago by Cefeida Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Lol, sorry, I was upset because I just saw people kept arguing about it. I think it would be selfish of either side to say "NO, SEND NOTIFICATIONS ALL THE TIME TO EVERYBODY" or "NO, DON'T LET ANYONE GET THESE NOTIFICATIONS." Because people on both side have valid points, and then there are all of the people in the middle that just have to choose whether or not to click the box whenever they feel the time is right, haha.

    Katlazam, I think that's the best idea/combination of ideas possible. +1 to you and to Cefeida. :D
    Posted 18 months ago by Cerulean Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Hehehehe - I think no one here would be surprised to discover I read every TOS and EULA, as well as warranties, manuals, product guarantees, the fine print that comes with everything the bank sends... pretty well the only thing I don't read - instructions!
    Posted 18 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ha, Trav! Not surprised at all, except on the instructions bit. I read so many of those bloody disclaimers while at work (yes, the horrid six-pt. type ones appearing in nearly every piece of advertising) that I can basically skim and find the relevant bits. Also can decode fairly well :) I am, however, obsessed with reading instructions and following to the letter, which probably doesn't surprise you, either:) lol
    Posted 18 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Instructions are fun, I love the random things manufacturers include. Recently I was instructed by a box of Kleenex to remove tissues from pockets before doing the laundry - who knew?! ;)
    Posted 18 months ago by katlazam Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Instructions frustrate me. Generally speaking, I can figure out which direction the batteries go, and I don't need several lines to tell me how to use a Phillips head to put bolt Q into board F. I get frustrated and give up. It took me about a year to read the operators manual on my camera, and then it was only because I wanted to figure out exactly what I'd been doing. 

    Not sure which of the older generation drove it home: you have no rights except those you take the time to educate yourself about. So contracts I'm great with, manuals not so much.
    Posted 18 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I only read the instructions after I break the thing trying to make it work. And then it's like...ooooh. Damn. Tab A goes into Tab B...

    (Cer, you're totally right. I really did forget, though! Was so preoccupied with the sound of my own keyboard.:P)
    Posted 18 months ago by Cefeida Subscriber! | Permalink
  • To clarify the point from the very beginning of the thread: the intent of saying it is *your responsibility* to note and review changes is to make clear that it is not *our responsibility* to ensure you do so. There is nothing in the TOS which says we *won't* give a notice when the TOS has changed; just that it is your responsibility to learn about changes and review them.

    If we do notify about a change, regardless of what we did to notify — send an email, pop up a dialog box, put a discrete notification at the bottom of the page, whatever — it would still be your responsibility to decide whether you want to continue to use Glitch if the terms change (an email can go to your spam folder, a dialog box can be swatted away too quickly, you can press accept without *really* reading the whole thing, etc.)

    Practically speaking, we would almost certainly give a prominent and hard-to-miss (or maybe even impossible-to-continue-without-agreeing) notification for any significant/material change to the TOS. And we would almost certainly not provide any notification if it was, say, correcting a spelling mistake. The TOS does not oblige any of this — but it does also not preclude any of this. And, again, the point of that particular secion is that regardless of what we do to notify you, it will still be your responsibility (otherwise we might as well not have a TOS).
    Posted 18 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks for the input, Stoot. Good to know we'll be getting notified when there are significant changes made.
    Posted 18 months ago by Cerulean Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Recently Zynga made changes to their TOS and privacy policy and notified users on the forum via a message at the top of the boards.  Hyperlinks to both pages were present and a nice red X to close the box made for an unobtrusive alert.  
    Posted 18 months ago by Mahalla Subscriber! | Permalink
  • good example, Mahalla.  thanks
    Posted 18 months ago by kakul Subscriber! | Permalink
  • No problem!  :)
    Posted 18 months ago by Mahalla Subscriber! | Permalink
  • > Does any other website that you have an account with notify you of changes?


    Subscription-based services often do this.  Banks and telephony providers are obvious examples.  Apple also does update TOS in iTMS and makes users click "ok" on the new ones.  I've also seen forum-based websites do something similar.
    Posted 18 months ago by mirth Subscriber! | Permalink
1 2 Next