> Axiom 3: Company has no other visible means of income
This is not true.
There are plenty of other ways for social sites to make money. If Twitter is doing billions off promoted Tweets, then surely a company like Facebook which has even more data on you can make a similar amount selling standard targeted advertising.
What we are seeing here is crossing the line. The worst thing is, this data was acquired under completely different terms and conditions. I never agreed to this when I signed up, and there is the faint scent of bullshit now that the company is trying to turn around years after that fact and retrospectively acquire my data. 'Opt out by deleting' doesn't cut it - we had a contract!
That "contract" you had with all those sites specifically stated that the business could change the terms of the contract at any time in the future. If you don't like that stipulation, then don't agree to those terms and don't use those services.
You can't just unilaterally change a contract and expect it to be valid. My understanding of things like this is so that if things do change, the company can offer up a new TOS/contract which would supersede the previous.
The problem is that it's a service and they never promised they would keep providing it under the same terms forever. So when they change the terms, you can stop using it, but you can't (if the new terms are enforceable) demand to keep using it under the old terms, any more than you could demand they keep offering the service if they decided to shut it down.
On the other hand, we've all now all got always-on always-connected computers in our pockets that already have more computing power than typical web servers a decade ago, so maybe somebody will write some software and that whole personal server thing will finally take off soon.
"The problem is that it's a service and they never promised they would keep providing it under the same terms forever. So when they change the terms, you can stop using it, but you can't (if the new terms are enforceable) demand to keep using it under the old terms, any more than you could demand they keep offering the service if they decided to shut it down."
Right, but terms need to be agreed upon by both parties. They can change the terms all they want but that doesn't mean that I have to abide by them if they don't ask for another agreement. The simple solution is to provide another agreement and make me agree again. If I don't agree, then the service is cancelled and we both go on our merry way.
Is that issue settled? Right now most entities we're talking about have a "TOS can be changed at any time" clause and seem to operate under the assumption that if they changed them and you keep using the site you have agreed.
Do you have to click an "I agree" for the new terms? Do they have to notify you or can they just change them and everyone has silently agreed to the changes?
I've seen all of the above and have never been clear on the current legal precedents on this.
I'm not sure. I do know that games like World of Warcraft would make you agree to the terms each time you had a patch or they changed. It seems like Instagram is doing what you are describing. I would definitely be interested in hearing a lawyer's opinion of it, since just changing it at any time without any specific action required on the part of the user seems to not be a valid contract in my eyes.
I can't remember specifics, but I do remember reading either some corporate lawyer opinions or maybe a low court decision that this was valid (or maybe they had to notify, in some way, that the TOS had changed by email or with a flash message on login).
I have certainly read plenty of lawyer opinions that it's blatantly invalid to have "this contract can change at any time with no notice" clauses in a contract but I'm not sure what precedent is out there.
This is not true.
There are plenty of other ways for social sites to make money. If Twitter is doing billions off promoted Tweets, then surely a company like Facebook which has even more data on you can make a similar amount selling standard targeted advertising.
What we are seeing here is crossing the line. The worst thing is, this data was acquired under completely different terms and conditions. I never agreed to this when I signed up, and there is the faint scent of bullshit now that the company is trying to turn around years after that fact and retrospectively acquire my data. 'Opt out by deleting' doesn't cut it - we had a contract!