Do you read the privacy policies of streaming websites? Well, no wonder. It’s HARD.
How many people both reading privacy policies and the terms and conditions of a website? Hardly anyone. We just click “agree” or whatever and get on with accessing what we want.
VPNOverview, a cybersecurity company, read some of these policies for us. Here’s what they found.
- The worst: Disney+. Word count: 2,573. Time to read: 20 minutes. The readability score is 2.8 (that’s VERY hard), which means it helps if you’re a university graduate.
- Netflix. Word count: 4,977 words. Time to read: 38 minutes. Readability score: 23.7. You still need to be a university graduate to understand it properly.
- Spotify. Word count: 5,9799. Time to read: More than 44 minutes. Readability score: 25.0. According to VPNOverview, 42% of those words deals with the company’s right to collection and use your personal data.
- Sky. Word count: 1,710. Time to read: 13 minutes. Readability score: 29.7.
- YouTube. Word count: 872. Time to read: Less than 7 minutes. Readability score: 30.6.
Best of luck.
Keep in mind that consumers have absolutely no say at all in these “agreements”. If I don’t agree with any part of the terms & conditions, I have two options – suck it up, or go away. There is only ever the “Accept” button, not one that gives the consumer any recourse at all or any way to voice their concerns with any part of the company policy. That’s not my definition of an agreement, so I may as well save my time reading it all and base my decision on whether to “Accept”, or not on how much I want their services