[sublinear]

I'm not a lawyer, but the terms of service are an agreement with the user, so yes. They're not hiding anything because then they'd get sued.

If they didn't disclose "this shady stuff" then the user can try to resolve their dispute via remedies stipulated elsewhere.

Really there are several ways they could have gone about writing this agreement. This is probably the simplest for everyone. This is also how the bigger orgs write their agreements. They state their intent and you have to agree or fuck off.

The badly written agreements (what you were expecting) are less honest and try to explicitly have the user waive some rights entirely including any remedies in or out of court, but those can usually be deemed unenforceable because they violate established rights and precedent rulings.

[kfrzcode]

Also not a lawyer. I'd think there's a level of interpretation to the enforceability of a given clause if it's not adequately exposed or is unconscionable in fairness. I'm guessing it's not so easy as clickwrap = rock solid contract.

[sublinear]

Sure if a majority of users expect apps to not steal your data or misuse your internet connection.

Sadly this isn't the case anymore. The layperson is distrustful by default and can only rely on the more astute to blow a whistle. Even a judge would just say to not install apps that aren't critical to your everyday life and be done with it. Nobody has the time to swat at flies.

[ncallaway]

> The layperson is distrustful by default

This sounds like it was written from an alternate reality. It doesn’t match my experience at all

[sublinear]

Yeah distrust isn't enough to deter the layperson from using an app anyway. That's my whole point.

[mikewestin256]

I'm curious to know why this is any more or less shady than an app that uses ads to monetize? Those ads use a ton of bandwidth and share a ton of information about you? If they're just passing some packets through your IP for web scraping what's the big deal?

[mikewestin256]

Bright Data offers an SDK for app developers to monetize their apps this way (https://bright-sdk.com). Maybe I am naive but this seems exponentially better than monetizing by sharing every tidbit of information Google and FB can get about me as I move through the web. Genuinely curious why this is so negative?