Why Long Terms of Use are a thing of the past: The TLDR Act
Have you ever struggled with wanting to have some terms of use on your website or your purchase page, but you don't want to overwhelm your user with a ton of legal jargon? Or, have you ever attempted to read terms of use for a social media platform, or something new that you're signing up for?
Let’s talk about the TLDR Act.
You know, TLDR? Too Long Didn't Read?
That's the real name of an act, and it stands for Terms of Service Labeling, Design and Readability Act of 2022. It was introduced in January 2022 and even though it's not law yet, it's super interesting and tells us a lot about the direction that Terms of Use are headed in.
“Users should not have to comb through pages of legal jargon in a website's Terms of Service to know how their data will be used."
That's from Senator Bill Cassidy in Louisiana. And he's right.
Let's talk about the enforceability of a contract. Nobody's combing through 70 pages of legal jargon to figure out how their data is going to be used on a new platform that they're signing up for. They're just not. And that's where this TLDR act comes in.
It's not law yet as of March of 2022, but it requires websites to provide a summary statement. That summary statement has to appear for users before they agree to the Terms of Service.
It needs to be at the top of the terms of service
It needs to be concise
It needs to be machine-readable
It needs to be easy to understand
It also needs to say whether a user can delete their information and how a user can request that their information is deleted.
This thing is going to be enforced by Attorneys General in all of the states, and also by the FTC. And you've heard me talk about FTC before when it comes to disclaimers, but the FTC will be able to treat violations of this act as kind of unfair business practices.
The point of this act is for the platform or the business to summarize these terms of use in a way that's easy to understand. There's a statistic that says something like it will take the average non-lawyer 70 days to go through the average Terms of Use and understand it. Ain't nobody got time for that and nobody is going to do that.
Who has to actually comply with this?
Regardless of whether you have to comply with it, I'm going to say that you should still think about complying with it, because people are going to start being used to seeing these summary statements. But technically small businesses are exempt from this bill if it becomes a law. And that small business as that's defined in the Small Business Act.
TLDR?
We know that the Act requires a summary statement at the top of Terms of Use.
People will have to be able to determine whether and how their information can be deleted.
And we know that they have to be concise, machine-readable and easy to understand.
So keep an eye out for that TLDR act. And if you follow me on Instagram, I'll let you know if it becomes a law.