This is what you get when you use a slick tool like Wordle (try it!) to run all the words used to make up the Terms of Service agreements of seven notable internet companies: cool visualizations that somewhat capture the essence of their content.
Pointless? Very. Cool? Definitely.
Here’s how Facebook’s Terms of Use agreement comes out (at least for now):
Looks wicked, good work
This may looks cool, but the current implementation is COMPLETELY WORTHLESS.
It is NOT the frequency of the words that matter in a legal contract. It is what the terms actually say. This is why unethical companies bury clauses in fine print. They hope no one will catch them out.
For something which is actually useful, I came across the Internet Privacy Forum site, http://www.inte...how-private.php
which shows you what online companies can find out about you, EVEN IF YOU DO NOT GIVE THEM ANY INFORMATION.
Anjali Sen
What would be worthwhile for a programmer to develop is a site where you can put in a website address and it will tell you in a standardized format and in plain English
1. What they claim to own when you use their site
2. What personal information they collect
3. Whether you can cancel the service
4. What they do with their information
5. Some web service like the one provided by the Internet Privacy Forum http://www.inte...how-private.php
No one has time to read twenty pages of legalese fine print for every single website they sign up to. We need something simple like this.
With Adsense or other online advertising, this could even be a profitable venture.
Anyone willing to take up this challenge?
Anjali Sen
I agree with Anjali.
That would indeed be awesome. I would definitely use such a service if someone creates it.
After the Facebook privacy fiasco(s), we need much more transparency on the Web on what these lawyers and corporates are trying to sneak past us by burying abusive clauses in the TOS.
Paul
@Anjali
LOL, you dont get it at all do you. Go spend the weekend chilling out and stop writing for the sake of it.
I type for the sake of typing. I did not read the FAQ of Wordle and without thiniking much decided to put a comment here, so you fools can come to my blog and increase traffic.
Yaa, It really looks Wicked..wooh..
http://www.smartbloggerz.com
Looks good will have to look more into this
I agree Robin, it’s totally pointless
Deliciously pointless, even.
Great! this is an awsome tool, exactly what I was looking for! Thank you Robin!
*Do you know of any other similar sites?
Some other sites for online creativity expression include:
# Photofunia: I used this site to create my avatar. A great site that lets you make some amazingly creative and sexy photo manipulations. I can guarantee that you will impress your date if you take a snapshot of her and then run it through one of Photofunia’s images. Developed by a creative team in Russia.
# Animoto: Would you like to make a music video in less than 2 minutes? All you need to do is upload some recent photos, and animoto does the rest for you. Much better than a slideshow, and it literally takes the amount of time to upload a few photos to the site. Run by a team based out of New York.
# Befunky: Change any photo into a Frank Milleresque image like in the movie. Very cool and sexy. Easy to use and incredibly beautiful results. Dveloped by a team based in one of my favourite countries, Turkey.
# Fotoflexer: Essentially an easy to use Photoshop equivalent for free. Several advanced options as well … including retouching photos. Run by a team based in Berkeley.
# Prezi: Powerpoint is like, so 2008. Try this service from Hungary. You will never go back to boring old Powerpoint again.
http://smartbab...-sites-for.html
@smartbabes
Great list! Few I never seen before. I put them into a gallery.
http://www.whoi...nk=14jaWsZ1qnzx
Hi Wholia
Very nice gallery and tool …
Anjali Sen
It’s kind of fun to run movie scripts and lyrics of a song (or album), through Wordle – for example, Beck’s “Odelay” turned out an image that looks like a microphone. [ Insert "robots taking over the world" conspiracy theory here.
]
have to laugh at facebooks wordle Privacy without rights”
Neat!
OH , its great. There goes the rest of the toner cartridges!
haha this is awesome, im off to go try it
And also that that pic of Google TOS look gr8.
In front it is like “use Google”.. Fantastic..
http://www.smartbloggerz.com
Agree totally with Anjali. T&C’s are stoned legal agreements – definately no child’s play as this website shows it to be.
All that you’re probably doing is satisfying yourself if you’re using one of these – they most likely won’t stand anywhere in courts.
Cheers!
Mark
It’s funny how serious some people are taking this!
Interesting development but pointless… weird for some to take it too seriously, I’m sure the reason for the development of this is to ride the popularity of facebook’s TOS and only for entertainment purposes.
http://Techfilipino.com
Really cool!
I always like the wordle images. I think it’s a good way to analyse text even though it might seem gimmicky at the beginning.
I can see so much clearly now!
Actually I wonder how many folks besides watchdog groups really read these documents.
Makes my head hurt!
But I guess that is why I blog and not write professionally. Just a twerp making it on the interwebs, if your TOS allows that.
Looks interesting, well.. because of how it’s done maybe?
I was looking this for a homework last year
Thanks for this, I have a homework like this
Cool website. I used it to generate an ‘about me’ page and looks awasome.
Looks like someone just discovered Wordle
Anyway, I think the TOS visualizations are the exact representation of what each one of us sees the various TOS as – a jumble of words which no one understands
Good work!
I’ve known the app for a long time, surprised that it hasn’t been written up on TechCrunch in the past. The whole Facebook ToS controversy gave me an excellent reason to finally do something with it for TC, though
I once overheard an idea to use an approach like creative commons licenses to make TOS intelligible at a glance. Wonder if anyone’s working on that…
That would be an excellent idea. A standardised set of TOS licenses that normal people can understand. I wish some enterprising individual would push that forward.
Anjali Sen
Comment below if you think I am annoying ?
YEAH!!!!! — To the point of tears!!! Just keep it up and nobody’s going to read the crap you write. If you think that posting comment after comment after comment is going to bring traffic to your blog, think again!!
BTW your blog sucks!
So, TC can have a post on that TOS service reader service and then I will come “again” to post a comment saying “how do they plan to monetize” with links to my Annoying Smart B Blog
Robin,
I found that site a little while ago and twittered it out, super cool.
cool!
Am I braindead?
20 minutes on Wordle and I can’t even figure out how to log on and become a member so I can play along.
Is it me?
Can anyone out there help a brother out???
Joe
There’s no registration required, just go here and follow instructions: http://www.wordle.net/create
Fascinating for the people who write TOS agreements, and the people who read them–if there were any.
Yea, it’s definitely worthless. I hate to knock an innovative, cool-looking product, but seriously, what value does it have for prospective users?
Did anyone have a bad experience with Wordle because it was written as a Java applet?
I like Wordle very much, I will use it when Google Image Search lacks to summarize my entire text in one image…