Online Standards of Service use: Assignment #1

  Five companies that use the terms and service agreements or have major conditions before use are Facebook, ask.fm, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat.  Five services that teens should look further into are "You don't own what you bought", 'They can turn your device into an expensive brick", "OnStar is narcing you out", and "iTunes knows what you are and what you're doing", and "you're almost always giving up your right to sue".  "You don't own what you bought" means that when you buy a digital file you don't actually own it you're just buying a licence to it.  If you read the terms of agreement a lot of them will say they reserve the right to change, suspend, or fully remove any product or content that they choose and they don't mean remove it from their site so nobody else can buy it; they mean remove it from the device you downloaded the file to, never to be seen again.  "They can turn your device into an expensive brick" means with phones it's legal to "jailbreak" the device but just because it's legal doesn't make it a good idea.  Most companies have paragraphs in their terms of service that say you promise not to mess with the software.  if they find out you did, you have given them the right to cause trouble.  For instance, Nintendo, after realizing people were installing software to pirate games on the Wii, released an update that would bring the system upon installation. "OnStar is narcing you out", what that means is OnStar is that incredibly convenient product many drivers use, however what you didn't know is that they are legally spying on you also a new agreement for OnStar forces you to allow them to sell your data to whoever they want.  They sell stuff like your vehicle speed, location and things like that but the downfall is they could sell it to your insurance company.  "iTunes knows who you are and what you're doing", apple can use iTunes to watch you all the time.  Apple is able to see your precise location.  Basically, the location data your phone has been storing is sent to a hidden database file and sync it to your computer whenever you connect your phone.  This means that somewhere on your computer is a log of everywhere's you've been.  "You're almost always giving up your right to sue", almost every user agreement now includes a clause about arbitration.  This means that you agree not to sue should a dispute arise.  Instead your case will be taken in front of an arbitrator who will listen to both sides one of which will include a team of lawyers.  The other side will just include you. http://www.cracked.com/article_19683_6-terrifying-user-agreements-youve-probably-accepted_p2.html