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Terms-of-Service; Didn't Read (check out the website)

Hey there! You might have heard about us already:

We are three volunteers who met through free software and online rights advocacy. We are trying to fight the unfair situation in which big websites make us sign Terms-of-Service agreements which are too long to read and understand. With your donations, we will run a review service that rates websites from class A (good) to class E (bad), and offer a browser plugin that informs you whenever you are about to tick that nasty little checkbox, "I have read and agree to the Terms of Service".

What We Need & What You Get

We have already gotten quite some press attention, and want to get serious about this. We need about 10.000 euros to actually get this off the ground. With that we can pay part-time and full-time curators, who will double-check all discussion outcomes and make sure the reviews and ratings reliably reflect the consensus in the open discussions.

We have some really cool perks for you if you donate! Ranging from a thank you note on our website, an exclusive "crowd angel" T-shirt, to us visiting you for a discussion conference. But most importantly, you will know that you stood up against those unreadable service terms, and helped to fight the unfair power balance between big corporations and individual users. 

The Impact

There have been many previous projects related to Terms-of-Service and Privacy Policies. Many aim for instance to design icons that translate these long texts into something more visual. But our project is different in that it actually reviews services and outs them if their terms are abusive, warning users against the dangers of signing contracts you don't read. Also, the discussion is entirely open, so anyone can act as a whistle blower by simply posting an abusive passage on our open discussion forum. Whenever there is a consensus, we will transfer that information to the service's rating.

We have already built up over a hundred data points, as you can see on our website. Here are the ratings for SoundCloud (good) and Twitpic (bad):

If we stop here, then this project will slowly lose momentum and fade into oblivion. We cannot let that happen. We need to run this on a day-to-day basis and keep the discussion alive, it's our only weapon to make our voice heard against those abusive long texts, and let websites know that at the end of the day we are their customers rather than their product.

Other Ways You Can Help

If you're not in a position to donate money right now, you can still help! Get involved in our project by joining our mailing list. Share this campaign with your online and offline friends. And get the word out and make some noise about our campaign. You can help to make our voice heard!