Google is making a big deal out of consolidating all its user agreements that nobody reads into a single, short, comprehensible user agreement that like three people will read. I say the company can do better than that, and so can all the other weblords out there.
I think they can get their agreements down to 100 words that anyone can read in a couple of minutes and maybe 20 percent of users actually will. OK, 15 percent.
To prove it, I'm writing 100-word license agreements for some of the big players in the web sphere. Also, a web sphere is something Spider-Man can shoot at people.
Why do you care what our user agreement says? We could put anything in here and you'd agree to it. You know why? Because you people love us. You! Love! Us! You're all, "Oh please, Google, can I use you for e-mail? Can I stick my daughter's quinceañera in Google Calendar? Can I put all my spreadsheets in you? May I watch videos of sleepy kittens? Oh, and can I please search you forever and always, please?" What are you going to do, switch to freaking DuckDuckGo? Here's your user agreement: We agree you should shut up and use our stuff.
We respect your privacy. You can control who sees your posts, your links and your damn Bejeweled scores by clicking Profile, then Personal Information, then Privacy Settings, then traveling across the Stormwave Sea to Hideaway Island and finding the one tree that, if you sing to it very sweetly, will point the way to the Golden Gully, wherein you will find the Privacy Elf. You must follow your heart or be lost forever. Once you have reached the Privacy Elf, answer his riddle and you can keep your mom from seeing what you wore for Halloween last year.
Yahoo!
By using Yahoo!'s services, including but not limited to Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Maps, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Calendar, Yahoo! Games, Yahoo! Shopping, Yahoo! People Search, Yahoo! Music, Yahoo! Messenger, Yahoo! Dating, Yahoo! Jobs, Yahoo! Escort Services and Yahoo! Planetary Concordance and Asteroid Alert, you agree to apparently think it's still 1998 and there aren't better services out there that don't think it's cute to have an exclamation point in their name. Also, you agree to complain at the top of your lungs every time we make even the tiniest little change to Flickr, you big babies.
Amazon
Amazon agrees to enhance your shopping experience by:
1. Ensuring that when searching for the cheapest Blu-ray player, you have to wade through pages of connectors and accessories even though you specified the Blu-ray player category.
2. Shipping your six-pack of razors in a box the size of an airport shuttle bus.
3. Assuming, because you bought a Caillou DVD for your nephew, you're obsessed with Canadian kids' shows, and suggesting that you buy Passe-Partout and The Smoggies forever after.
4. Making sure you never, for a picosecond, forget there's this thing called a Kindle and maybe you should buy one.
You, hereafter known as "you," agree to hold Twitter, hereafter known as "Twitter," harmless and not at all liable for any mental distress, reduction of intellectual capacity, eye spasms, difficulty breathing, frothing at the corners of the mouth, flared nostrils, pounding headaches, pounding stomachaches, incessant sounds of still-beating hearts coming from under the floorboards, sleepless nights, listless days, interminable afternoons, allergic reactions, seething hatred, roiling hatred, burning hatred, fermenting hatred, soft pillowy hatred or hair-tearing, whether self-inflicted or imposed on loved ones, resulting from the upcoming deluge of half-assed, poorly informed, astonishingly misspelled political tweets you're going to see this year.
Photo: SXC, modified by Lore Sjöberg
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Born helpless, naked and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg overcame these handicaps to become a lawyer, a voyeur and a foyer.
