Category: Uncategorized
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On January 7, 2025, Mark Zuckerberg, of Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc) made a shocking public announcement that rejected Meta’s current values, moderation standards, and technology. Zuckerberg promised that Meta will transform to match the current American moment, specifically the election of Donald Trump. Meta will “prioritize speech” and “restore free expression” on his platforms…
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The United Kingdom has passed a bad law and it just came into effect. It’s called the Online Safety Act of 2023. It’s also not something most website owners should be too worried about, especially outside the UK. The Online Safety Act (OSA) is one of those laws that seeks to protect children, but instead…
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As part of my Sample Terms of Service project I am going through the terms clause by clause. This installment covers the core of a terms of service, the User Conduct Clauses that provide the website moderators with their contractual authority to ban users for specific unwanted activity. It also looks at the EU’s DSA…
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“Does this regulation affect to me or my projects?” That’s the first question developers should be asking when they hear about new laws, such as the new EU-wide product regulation for tech, the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA). In this post I propose some basic questions you can ask yourself to figure out if the CRA…
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Many of 23 and Me’s former customers are asking to have their data and samples deleted or destroyed out of concern that they may be sold during the company’s looming collapse and likely bankruptcy (as of Oct 2024). 23 and Me isn’t making it easy, and one argument they have for retaining data is that…
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While the Age Limitation Clause described in the last post is the most important of these type of clauses … or at least the most complex … there are other ways to reduce liability and improve site moderation by limiting who can use a service or site. The two terms discussed below are remarkably simple…
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The second section in the Sample Terms of Use is a set of terms limiting who can use the website … a series of “User Limitation Clauses”. This variety of clauses exists to protect the site operators by excluding classes of users who create additional difficulties: those that can’t make valid agreements, those protected by…
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT CLAUSEThe second clause in the Sample Terms of Service is a variety of an “Acknowledgement Clause”, a term I am using here to avoid confusion with an “Acceptance Clause”, which usually covers when one has legally accepted the delivery of goods. The Acknowledgement Clause here also incorporates a Modification Clause that is useful to…
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The First clause of the SAMPLE TERMS OF SERVICE I posted last week is the “Introductory Clause” and it contains one essential element – naming the parties. It also includes another element that is useful, especially in this sort of consumer contract, some descriptions of the Terms’ scope. Remember these terms are a draft, and…
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Starting a Mastodon instance? Then you might have worried a bit about the potential legal issues and liability that come with operating a public international forum online. As a lawyer involved with online communities and tech, it’s fascinating to see this area evolve and I’ve become quite interested in the issues of operator liability and…