Will TLDR Get a New Meaning?

Let’s be real – nobody actually reads the terms and conditions they agree to when visiting a website. And for good reason. For all of us who are not corporate lawyers – and probably even for many who are – the jargon those terms are couched in is practically indecipherable.

Which is exactly how the tech companies like it. Because then consumers don’t think about how much of their personal information and data they are agreeing to let someone else buy and sell at will.

Queue a new bill in Congress that would require websites to lay out those terms and agreements in language the rest of us can understand. The legislation, dubbed the Terms-of-service Labeling, Design and Readability Act (TLDR) – a clever twist on the Internet slang for Too Long Didn’t Read – would also require websites to offer consumers a summary statement that would inform them of a number of things, including the kind of data the site collects on them, any recent data breaches that site has experienced and exactly how one goes about deleting their data if they so choose.

While the two major parties don’t agree on much these days, this is one area where bipartisanship is so far alive and well. In a joint statement, the bill’s three sponsors – two Democrats and one Republican – accused the companies of creating “unnecessarily long and complicated contracts, knowing that users don’t have the bandwidth to read lengthy legal documents when they’re simply trying to message a loved one or make a quick purchase.”

If the measure becomes law, enforcement would all on the Federal Trade Commission and the attorneys general in each state and the District of Columbia. It comes amidst increasing state efforts to give consumers more control over the use of their personal data and growing sentiment on Capitol Hill to force tech companies and social media outlets to be more transparent about their policies.

-- Rich Ehisen