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 COLUMN
Don't get boxed in by changes to your service providers' TOS agreement PROTECTING YOURSELF against sneakwrap terms on the Internet is simple. All you have to do is spend virtually all your online time reading reams of legalese to make sure they haven't changed since the last time you were logged in.
Part of this trend that I find particularly worrisome is the way that "free" Internet services are adopting the harshest sneakwrap terms of all. The TOS (terms of service) for Winfire's FreeDSL that we discussed last week are the scariest I've seen in their repeated assertion of the company's right to change what you're getting or what you're paying for it at any time. And this even applies to FreeDSL's extended services for which there is a charge. The TOS very explicitly state that the company will charge a $200 cancellation fee even when the customer is terminating due to "a change in features by Winfire ... or by reason of a modification of terms by Winfire ... ." (They do promise to give extended service customers 30 days' notice of such changes via e-mail, but of course that promise could be eliminated when they change their terms.) FreeDSL isn't the only free service with sneakwrap terms that have raised eyebrows. NetZero's legalese defines four different documents posted on its site -- its terms and conditions, acceptable use guidelines, software license agreement, and privacy statement -- collectively as NetZero's "Rules." Of course, it goes on to say that NetZero can change those Rules and the scope of NetZero at any time by posting new terms, and that's the only notice you'll get, and so on. And then it adds a kicker: "Each time before using the NetZero Services, you agree to review changes to the Rules and, if any change is not acceptable to you, you agree to terminate use of NetZero Services." By my count, those four documents total over 11,000 words. No date or other clue in the documents themselves will let you know if it's changed since the last time you read it. How long does it take to read 11,000 words of thick legalese? I'm not sure, but NetZero users who don't spend that time at the beginning of every Internet session are violating their agreement with the service. Somehow I doubt this is the kind of freedom that the Russian defector in the company's TV commercial had in mind. Am I being paranoid? Maybe. After all, we haven't seen any of these free services actually take advantage of their sneakwrap terms to start charging their customers. To do so, as the Winfire official said last week, would be tantamount to closing down their business. Besides, what do the customers of these free services expect? They aren't paying anything, so they shouldn't be surprised if these companies take steps to protect themselves against unforeseen circumstances. You get what you pay for. Based on what we've seen in the past, though, I can't help but think that these draconian terms are there to be used. In the last year we have seen services that you do pay for such as Excite@Home, Cox@Work, and US West try to quietly change their service offerings without customers noticing. Yahoo tried to slip its content-grabbing terms past users of the just-acquired GeoCities last spring. And there was the well-publicized case of RealNetworks changing its privacy policy after RealJukebox users discovered the program was sending personal information about them to the company. The RealNetworks example brings us to the heart of the issue concerning free services and sneakwrap. There is indeed no such thing as a free lunch; the coin with which customers pay for free services is the privacy they agree to give up. Just how much privacy they surrender -- be it ads displayed on their system, usage information shared with partners, or whatever -- is spelled out in privacy statements. Providers of free services are making it clear by their aggressive sneakwrap language that they want the right to change those privacy polices without notice. Free-service providers that are unable to turn a profit -- and there will be many -- won't have to start charging to open a new revenue stream. They just need to change their privacy policy so they can sell more information about their customers. Companies that do charge have done it; why expect companies that don't to behave any better? Got a complaint about how a vendor is treating you? Write to Ed Foster , InfoWorld's reader advocate, at gripe@infoworld.com. Discuss this article in our online forums MORE > SPONSORED WHITE PAPERS 
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