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Newbie/Basic Questions

PHP Service Terms - bye bye privacy?

Author: T.Roydhouse (14 Jan 05 11:37pm)

Ok, so I'm a lawyer and I do read "terms and conditions" :)

Despite much being made about privacy of supplied information, this term in the "Terms of Service Use":

"SECTION 9: PUBLICITY AND REPORTING

You agree that Unspam may use Your name, Website(s), donated Domains and logo(s) in presentations, marketing materials, customer lists, financial reports, statistical reports and listings of members."

potentially negates any shred of privacy!

Comments?

Re: PHP Service Terms - bye bye privacy? Not.

Author: C.Combs (15 Jan 05 2:45am)

I am a lawyer too, and I think you are construing that clause far too broadly. How does the use of of your "name, Website(s), donated Domains and logo(s)" negate "any shred of privacy?" If it stated Unspam may use your "social security number, address, phone number" or other personal identifying information, I would agree with you. But this is pretty harmless.

Maybe you are simply given to hyperbole by nature, or maybe you are not really a lawyer?

Re: PHP Service Terms - bye bye privacy?

Author: B.Dahl (15 Jan 05 3:46am)

We certainly understand the fear that people have regarding personal information. That is why we started Project Honey Pot. We wanted less intrusion.

Therefore, although we do not and will not encourage it, we will not make it our routine to delete accounts with inaccurate zip codes or Scooby-Doo user names.

The Terms of Service is not written as some sort of way for us to invade the privacy of our members. As a new Project, we need to earn our users' trust. Part of that is to assure you that we are here to help you avoid spam, not encourage spam.

We do not presume that you are granting us permission to share your personal information with people wanting to sell you stuff. However, in order for our service to be effective, we need to be able to share information with others, particularly law enforcement officials, in helping track down harvesters, spammers and phishers. In order to permit us to share such information, we felt our terms of service needed to tell our members where their information might be used. If these documents raise specific privacy concerns, please let us know and we will do our best to clarify or correct them.

Thank you for your interest in the Project.

Re: PHP Service Terms - bye bye privacy?

Author: M.Shanmugasund (2 Feb 05 1:13pm)

I don't read lawyerese, but it seems to me that :

Your Websites and Domains are available through simple websearching.
Your Name is generally publicly available on your website, in any web-searchable document you may have signed your name to, or with a WhoIs check and/or reverse phone directory.
Your Logo is available through a trademark search or casual observation.

It seems perfectly reasonable to me that HoneyPot retain the right to promote their services by using the publicly available information of others using their services.

Re: PHP Service Terms - bye bye privacy? Not.

Author: T.Roydhouse (6 Feb 05 7:49am)

[C.Combs]

| I am a lawyer too, and I think you are construing that clause far too
| broadly. How does the use of of your "name, Website(s), donated
| Domains and logo(s)" negate "any shred of privacy?"

Because it goes on to say that this information, information which is personally identifying, may be used "in presentations, marketing materials, customer lists, financial reports, statistical reports and listings of members."

It gets worse, SECTION 13: INFORMATION RIGHTS states: "Unspam may retain and use for its own purposes all information You provide, including but not limited to Website demographics and contact information. "

Surely you can see that this is in direct conflict with the stated privacy policy (http://www.projecthoneypot.org/privacy_policy.php)?

|or maybe you are not really a lawyer?

I have two undergraduate law degrees and one postgraduate law degree and was admitted as a lawyer 20+ years ago. Trust me, I'm a lawyer ;-)

Re: PHP Service Terms - bye bye privacy?

Author: T.Roydhouse (6 Feb 05 8:21am)

[B. Dahl]

| The Terms of Service is not written as some sort of way for us to
| invade the privacy of our members.

Your terms of service do not provide, to me at least, any warm, fuzzy feeling that my privacy might be protected. Quite the contrary. SECTIONS 4, 5, 9, 13 and 14 (second last sentence) appear from their tenor to be plainly privacy unfriendly.

| As a new Project, we need to earn our users' trust.

Indeed - the above terms did not go any way towards engendering such trust. Understand that I was fully intending to "donate" MX entries UNTIL I read these terms.

| However, in order for our service to be effective, we need to be
| able to share information with others, particularly law enforcement
| officials, in helping track down harvesters, spammers and phishers.

How does this reconcile with, for example, using the information "for marketing purposes", "retaining and using (in perpetuity - see SECTION 4) any and all supplied information for its own purposes", and "Notwithstanding the foregoing, Unspam may assign this Agreement to any affiliate at any time without notice" ?

Re: PHP Service Terms - bye bye privacy?

Author: T.Johnson (8 Feb 05 2:34pm)

Hopefully it is not off-topic to ask in this thread whether the PHP terms and the terms and conditions placed on honeypot sites have been checked for compatibility with PIPEDA (Canadian electronic privacy legislation)?

I think the issue would arise if information submitted to Unspam, when a page is generated for a human visitor, were ever to be correlated with other personally idenitifiable information and used for any purpose other than the targetting of spammers and harvesters.

It would be wise to place a clause in the PHP terms to ensure that any such use of data is explicitly foresworn, binding upon affiliates, sucessors and assigns. I believe that would provide compatibility with PIPEDA and other privacy legislation jurisdictions.

PIPEDA is fairly new, so the body of case law defining the boundaries of some of its vaguer clauses is not yet fully established, which creates a risk of unintentional violation. The only advice the government agency responsible has given me in response to requests for clarification (I asked about refer-a-friend systems) is to try to avoid becoming one of the test cases.

None of the above is not legal advice - I'm not a lawyer, but I have friends who think I should have read law not politics!