Terms of Service are legal agreements between a service provider and the user of that service. However, Terms of Service tend to be extremely lengthy and too long to read, therefore many of us end up accepting “I have read and agree to the Terms”, without actually knowing what we are agreeing to.

Terms of Service Didn’t Read (TOSDR) is a website that provides a browser add-on via which you can rate and label Terms of Service from class A, “very good” to class E, “very bad”. Please see here to download the specific add-on for your browser.

With TOSDR you can easily see a summary of what terms you are agreeing to. For example, the BBC, CNN and Etsy are rated as class E and state in their terms that “You sign away moral rights”.

It can be seen that other companies also have concerning terms, such as eBay, which states “This service ignores the Do Not Track (DNT) header and tracks users anyway even if they set this header”. Instagram states that “You waive your right to a class action” and Yahoo that “Yahoo! may collect your device fingerprint” (which is a way of tracking users without their permission).

To see the ratings of companies that have already been assessed, please see here.