This document is easily longer than the combined length of the contract and mortgage documents I signed to buy my house. In fact, I believe it is several times longer than any single document I have ever signed.
That is true but a quick scan of it and particularly the section headings seem "down to earth" and much easier to read than comparable documents of this type.
All in all the bottom line is always "you have no rights we do" and obviously there is also always a clause that says "hey we can change this at anytime we want but you are free to leave".
That said to be fair anytime you start dealing with a large quantity of customers you need to do things to protect yourself with something like this. There is no way around that. What you might do if you have 24 customers and what you need to do with 25,000 customers is entirely different.
Even if the dollar amount is small a large amount of small customers can band together to hire an attorney to pursue a claim whereas the same simply isn't going to happen with a small customer base and the dollars involved (in general of course as always).
iTunes and Paypal are routinely cited (for good reason) as examples of services with too-long terms of service, but funnily enough, Media Temple's ToS puts them to shame:
* iTunes's ToS[1] is a little over 14,000 words (15 pages if I print it out)
* Paypal's user agreement[2] is a little over 23,000 words (31 pages if I print it out)
* Media Temple's ToS is over 25,000 words and 44 pages if I print it out
The iTunes terms and conditions are substantially shorter, but you're right that the Paypal agreement is of similar length, and both are ridiculous.
However, I've never signed either one, and if they were posted here under the heading "keeping it real" and "We tried to keep things as simple as possible", I would say the exact same thing.
There is no clickwrap-style agreement -- none -- that will ever approach the importance of many documents I have physically signed in my life, and not a single one of those documents even begins to approach this length.
If you think you need a 44 page document to protect yourself that, realistically, mostly only lawyers would ever read in full that's understandable: most of the big companies do it.
What I don't understand is why they felt they needed to be disingenuous about it: 44 pages of legalese isn't "keeping it real" or "trying to keep things simple" for most reasonable connotations of those phrases. It appears there isn't even a diff to compare the old terms to the new terms, either.
Abuse of our support system may include, but is not limited to, engaging in any threatening, abusive, offensive, defaming, harmful, profane, harassing, or unreasonably excessive communication (whether written or oral) with Media Temple via the Channels of Support or elsewhere in the universe (you read that right, the universe)
So if a customer uses twitter to express any displeasure they could be kicked out?
> or even just navigating our Website, you completely and unconditionally agree to be bound by all of the terms of this Agreement.
No, I don't consent to the terms of your agreement merely by browsing your website. This probably won't hold up in court, but more than that, just asserting this makes it clear to me that I have no interest in doing business with you.
" With new products and improvements coming, we need to let you know that we've made some changes to (mt) Media Temple's Terms of Service. It's been a while so they have been rewritten from the ground up and you can find them on our website here.
To continue using (mt) services, you'll need to read and accept the new terms by logging in to your AccountCenter and clicking "I Accept."
These updates reflect how our company and the law have changed over the past few years. We did our best to keep things simple, but some legal language here and there couldn't be avoided. If you have any questions or concerns about this agreement, please email legal.notices@mediatemple.net "
