The TLDR account will require that the Terms of Service be understandable

There is a reason for that no one reads small cards with terms of service tucked away at the bottom of any website: They too long, too full jargon, i too impenetrable that anyone without a law degree would strive to understand.

Now, a bipartisan trio of lawmakers wants to change that. U.S. Representative Lori Trahan (D-MA), along with U.S. Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) announced new bbad on Thursday which, if passed, would require large companies to create a simple summary of their ToS pages designed to read them ordinary people instead of entire legal teams. They call it the Law on the Labeling, Design, and Readability of Terms of Service — or TLDR for short (yes, really).

Specifically, TLDR would require these summaries outline the type of consumer data collected on a particular page and details of whether this data is required for collection at all. Companies will also be asked to draw a graphical diagram showing how their data is shared with certain third parties, and all legal responsibilities for the person who uses pages. Above all, the pages will must be allowed to users they know how to erase their personal information that the site collects and give instructions on how to do it. Companies they will also have to a list all reported data breaches that the site has experienced in the last three years and publish and a brief overview of all recent changes to the Terms of Use.

Basically, this proposed short and simple version of the Site Terms of Use may not be as long as the undeciphered legal language you should read now, but don’t expect it be short.

In order to carry out this mandate, companies would also have to write these not so short summaries in machine readable text, so that “browser extension advocates and developers” (and probably anyone else) can analyze the differences between different companies Terms on a scale. And if the page is captured drawing something insidious with its summary, the law allows the Federal Trade Commission to issue fines under its current rules on “unfair or deceptive acts or practices.” State AGs they could also file their own lawsuits “on behalf of at least 1,000 affected residents in their ownDad. ”

Like most banknotes, the TLDR is something that sounds good in theory, but it probably will complete a mess in practice. Website terms from sservice could be impossible to read, but privacy strolicies su equally bad, and usually discuss more details about your data and how it is handled than any ToS But the privacy policy is not addressed in this law, nor are the different tastes of “anonymous data” that these companies are free to collect, even though that data is usually equally sensitive like something like your address or phone number.

Ton tl;Dr. TLDR: yesnot great! It deals only with a narrow part of the multitude of data they collect about you all over the web and gives them plenty of way out to continue mining that data against your will. And even if this account it seems just go ahead in Congress – which, let’s be real, that probably won’t– Fr. current patchwork technological privacy laws that vary from state to state. It will also fight the FTC that already exists overwhelmed with his current duties and there is only lost some of the key technologists that would enable this type of oversight.

Fortunately, even if Congress will not give us the summaries of ToS we deserve, already exists one website it does almost everything this law aims at.