Evaluating Terms of Service Documents: Resources

There was so much interest in my previous article How I Evaluate Terms of Service for Social Media Web Sites – Google+ I thought the following helpful sites would address lingering questions I’ve heard and point you to incredible resources to help you make the best decisions possible when signing on to new social media sites or even decisions to stay with existing social media sites

TOSback – the Terms of Service Tracker set up by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
This web site is exceptional in tracking changes to existing web sites and the site I trust most. I’ve yet to see anything specific to Google+ yet, but its only a a matter of time. When they do post something it will be here on the Google TOSback page.

Photo Sharing Sites – Terms of Service Comparison Chart
Compiled by Professor Kathy E. Gill of the University of Washington (@kegill). I think this is a very noble effort and one of the few I’ve found to date to compare multiple sites. Included are Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Lockerz, MobyPictures, Photobucket, Picasa, Posterous, TwitPic, Tumblr, Twitter and yFrog.
Disclaimer: Always read the Terms of Service in its entirety versus relying on snippets.

ASMP Social Media Tutorial (New as of July 19th):
Great timing ASMP 1 day after my original post released their Social Media Tutorial. As a member of ASMP I’ve always found their resources to be of great help. Be sure to read the Legal Considerations and Common Terms of Use sections. I’m looking forward to them expanding these sections to cover more sits.

[tags]photography, terms of service, tos, social media[/tags]