Part of why we don’t think online privacy is a big deal is because for so many years we have signed away our privacy by agreeing to terms and conditions we don’t understand. We no longer think there’s anything wrong with this and cannot imagine any other model.
But the way in which terms of use are presented to us makes it impossible to truly understand what we are getting into.
The writer of this well-written piece says that informed consent is the basis of any contract that two parties sign. With much of the online services we interact with, we do not give such informed consent:
One, it is simply not practical to read, process and understand the average service’s terms of use. They are several hundred or several thousand words long, often ambiguous, displayed when you’ve already begun the installation or signup process, and require you and me, the users, to keep track of future changes made to the terms.
Two, it’s all or nothing. Even if you don’t understand the terms, you aren’t allowed to use the application or service. There is no middle ground, no customization, no negotiation. If you’re an existing customer and don’t agree to a new change to the terms, which were made unilaterally, you’re supposed to exit the service. Whether you’re allowed to take your data with you, and whether and how long your data is kept around is once again entirely up to the service provider.
This not only makes everyday conveniences difficult, when it comes to what the writer calls mandatory applications, like a contact tracing app during a pandemic, it is outright disenfranchising.
I recently read, in the context of sexual consent, that a yes has no meaning if no is not a safe option. Our relationships with tech companies are unbelievably unequal – we have no real ability to say no. And our collective individual loss of privacy is directly – though not exclusively – due to our woeful lack of understanding of this lack of consent.