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WHAT EXACTLY DO we agree to when we download a smartphone app? To prove the “absurdity” of lengthy terms and conditions, some Norwegians are reading those of 33 apps, from Tinder to iTunes, in a live two-day readathon.
The user terms and conditions of the 33 applications typically found on a Norwegian smartphone amount to 260,000 words, or 900 pages, according to Norway’s consumer protection agency, making them a lengthier read than the New Testament.
To demonstrate the texts’ complexity, the agency has asked consumers to read out the terms and conditions live on its site.
“The aim is to demonstrate that the user terms for internet services, apps or other, are very bad,” head of the agency’s digital services section, Finn Myrstad, told AFP.
They’re too long and unintelligible.
Users were reading the conditions for Twitter, Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, Gmail, Skype, Instagram and Angry Birds among others.
By midday at Wednesday, they had been reading for 27 hours, and were expected to continue for a few more hours.
“Imagine if all the users in the world who have a smartphone were to spend more than 30 hours [reading]. That’s more than four days of work just to read the user terms and conditions on a smartphone,” Myrstad said.
Among the conditions posing the greatest concern were those granting “perpetual” or “irrevocable” licenses to the other party, he said.
“This means, in practice, that the content of your app, whether it’s your photos or your chats, will forever belong to the company. That’s totally unacceptable and violates European and Norwegian law,” Myrstad said.
The Norwegian consumer protection agency is a world leader in confidentiality issues. It recently criticised the French online dating service Happn and popular jogging app Runkeeper for collecting and transmitting users’ data even when the apps are inactive or uninstalled.
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See, this is what happens when you slag off the red line.
Ha exactly.
Yup… those red liners will be laughing all the way to the post office or the methadone clinic this Wednesday morning wondering just what exactly is this ‘work’ thing that their South Dublin counterparts are so concerned to be missing.
Red Line is South Dublin from Saggart to Houston Station. At least consult a compass when composing your slurs!
Autocorrect thinks it’s in Texas.
Very funny Drew … not.
Drew the south Dubliners have to “work” as you put it to afford the shed loads of cocaine every weekend!
Aye we do…. For taxes purposes though we’re working to afford our ‘columbian overseas foreign aid’ donation.
Running the red line through gang territory has now paid off. Its so used to gun shots puny lightening doesn’t frighten it
Was there not a stabbing on the green line recently????
Another blow in who probably doesn’t have a clue..
There was, my comment was tongue in cheek (written onboard a red line tram)
The new machine gun turret on top will have that sorted .
Funny too, Felix. We might be posting from the same train.
**looks around nervously**
@ Shane Walsh only spotting your comment now:
If using the red line since its inception in 2004 first for school & college, and now to go to work making in excess of 460 trips per year (allowing for annual leave/bank holidays) for the last 6/7yrs qualifies me as a blow in so be it
Good response to my early morning moany reply. Remind me to shake your hand at the Kingswood Stop in the morning ;) ;)
^^^now thats freaky!! :-)
hahahaha :) :) :) Happy Wednesday.
Shussss don’t tell anyone
Threw a fuse in her. Be grand. If she keeps blowing throw a bit of fag paper or a 10 mil bolt in her. Also be grand. Ish.
Its same problem as yesterday. They dont have the skills to repair. Any technical fault and they have to go to the foreign companies that built it. Makes you wonder why they pay local engineers? After last nights investigations they have just madw the problem worse by disabling the whole line.
Fragile wee thing that Luas….
This is obviously God’s way of telling liberal South Dublin to vote No! Subtle, but I get the message.
Not a bad thing, considering that Enda’s gang were lying in wait to ambush the electorate for a vote on something that they dont really give a s**t about.
It’s that Breda O’brien playing with the new testiment weather kit …
It’s running again now
have your say