Hacker Cinema
Terms and Conditions May Apply
2013 · Film · documentary · 79 min
Directed by Cullen Hoback
Have you ever read the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policies connected to every website you visit, phone call you make, or app you use? Of course you haven’t. But those agreements allow corporations to do things with your personal information you could never even imagine. This film explores the intent hidden within these ridiculous agreements, and reveals what corporations and governments are legally taking from you and the outrageous consequences that result from clicking “I accept.”
5 positivefrom 5 commenters
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6 comments on Hacker News
You made a lot of great points. In regards to:
"3.) Consumers having a poor understanding of the long-term consequences of putting data out there, and what it can be used for"
This is so true and unfortunately there are few resources for helping people understand the implication and consequences. I think at the very least we should be educating young people, perhaps in school.
There's a decent documentary that came out a few years ago called "Terms and Conditions May Apply", its an independent release and so lacks some polish in places but I think its worth a watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HPw_hx7OME
This pitch reminded me of the cartoon in beginning of the documentary Terms and Conditions May Apply - a concise documentary related to the topic of how your data can be used by the company whose services you are using. The cartoon may be good to use too.
1. Cartoon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y2M8BUcXG4
2. Documentary site: http://tacma.net/
For those of you in this thread that are dismayed that some of us don't enjoy being tracked, I highly recommend a short, entertaining documentary that's currently available on Netflix, iTunes, etc. called:
Terms and Conditions May Apply
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/terms_and_conditions_may_apply/
http://tacma.net/
Actually, I think even some privacy-conscious folks might learn a thing or two from it as well. I know I did. :)
It's not just that, though. All of the casual information that you post on Facebook, including timestamps and whatnot, can all be used to infer and create a detailed portfolio as to your personality, location, political views, sexual orientation, interests, commonly visited places, employer, etc. EXIF data from photographs alone is a goldmine.
There was actually a practical example of a man FOIAing his documents from Facebook, which revealed that they had over a thousand pages specifically devoted to him alone on every facet of his life. Even though he was only a "casual" user (one wall update a week, or so). You can see it in the documentary film Terms and Conditions May Apply.
As for me personally, I've never had a Facebook account. Although virtually no one is impervious, reducing social media presence is still always useful to get rid of the blatantly incriminating things.
Unfortunately, the biggest threat is perhaps, what other people are saying about you. I have no idea about what's going on there...
This also happened during the ending of the documentary film Terms and Conditions May Apply. The crew films Zuckerberg outside of his residence and he is noticeably indignant at them, being unresponsive to their questions and walking away. He then asks them to turn off the camera, which they do. However, they leave on a hidden spy camera, which shows how after Zuckerberg believes he is no longer being filmed, he turns around, smiles at them and politely gives them permission to pursue further questions at his workplace.
This is then used by the filmmaker to illustrate a powerful point. I don't really mean to demonize Zuckerberg, not at all. His reactions are absolutely normal and human, although his public history isn't particularly charming, and it's always interesting to see how a surveillance giant isn't any different in his reception to unwarranted surveillance from the layman.
If you are interested in looking into this more, I highly recommend the documentary which is coming out called terms and conditions may apply. It explores how companies are giving this information to the govt willingly + it is stated in their terms and conditions.
This is the trailer: https://vimeo.com/57182041