So many online services, so much legal information, usually written in confusing ways.
For example, in data processing addendum, Porkbun uses the term “Controller”, which is defined as:
(d) “Controller” as used in this DPA, means Customer.
Why not just call it Customer?
Worse yet, just like many services, Purelymail has this in their ToS:
The Company reserves the right to change this agreement at any time. You are responsible for regularly reviewing these Terms. Continued use of the Service after such changes shall constitute your consent to them.
In this case, there isn’t even a date of last update. Am I supposed to have some scripts scraping all legal documents of most services every hour and comparing checksums to figure out if something has changed?
But how should I even keep track of legal agreements of many many companies including any affiliated third parties I implicitly agree to use?
Because it sounds like I should also be concerned about those:
Sub-processors authorised under Section 7 of the DPA process the personal data described above for the purposes listed above and only for the duration necessary to perform the sub-processed activity.
If I was to read, understand, and keep track of everything, I feel that would in fact just become my full-time job. Especially since they often also reference laws, something I would also need to know and understand.
Subject to applicable law […]
Which is what?
Be careful of just dismissing a ToS simply because some parts of it aren’t legally binding. A lot of it is binding and if you think otherwise, you’ll need to convince a judge of why that is. That’s going to require time and money that could have been saved by using another service with a more reasonable contract.
Looking at your example of arbitration clauses, while those may not work in some countries, in the US that’s a different story. You can have an attorney argue that this term should not be binding, but there are varying factors that a judge will look at to determine this. Was there an option to opt out? How easy was it to opt out? How much time were you given to opt out? Etc.
Arbitration clauses can be useful for courts since they offload work to external parties. So, there is a little extra work on your part to convince the judge that they should rule out that term. In most cases your best bet will be to have the judge allow you to use an unbiased arbitrator rather than the one that’s usually specified in the ToS. Even then, you’ll still need to convince a judge of that.
That’s likely why there are so many ToS that put these in your face and have you click a button before you can continue with anything else. So, browsing a website probably wouldn’t be binding, but creating an account and using their service probably would be.
That’s pretty much what I gathered from my research as well. All of this would require time and money for legal resources. If you’ve got those, go wild. If you don’t, it’s still worth reading the TOS.
It’s just good to also note that many of the scarier clauses aren’t actually enforceable, and rely on the user’s fear to function.