TOS Most Unread Document Of All Time

Just about every website nowadays has a Terms of Service (TOS). But, in the 10+ years I have been using the internet I have never once read more than 10 words of one. Onetime a website hid a password in the TOS as a way to try and force me to read it but, it was as easy as copying it all into Microsoft Word and finding the spelling mistakes.

There is no possible way that the government could possibly require everyone to read the TOS. One they would be 1000's of pages long. Also, they would constantly be changing so it would constantly need to be reread. This all goes without saying that the terms of service would really be no different than the current laws we have in place. Whether their goal is to get the consent or force the user to understand that all of their internet activity will be logged or just a way to protect the user neither would be accomplished by implementing a TOS.

Regardless of whether I give my consent or not, the government is going to monitor my activity. Other governments are going to monitor my activity. It’s just the price we pay for getting free access to information across the world. There is nothing anyone can do about it, if they feel upset or angry about it, they have the choice to just not use it. But the way I look at it, if you don’t have anything to hide and you’re not doing anything that is going to upset the government or another government, you have nothing to worry about.

 I understand that some believe the government isn’t only monitoring users for terrorism and other safety reasons. Some believe that individuals in the NSA are listening in on phone calls of regular people or stealing web cam videos, and many other privacy invading tactics. I personally find that hard to believe because the NSA has nowhere near enough employees to monitor regular individuals. The people they monitor are ones that get flagged by sophisticated algorithms that detect certain words, phrases, images, videos, and activities that the government finds potentially unsafe. For them to monitor some regular citizen’s day to day phone calls and emails would be a waste of their time. I could however believe that some NSA employees have too much access and can investigate people they meet or want to know about thus giving them access to all of their recorded activity. This would be a huge problem but should be monitored by their bosses.

Overall though none of what I mentioned would be solved by implementing a TOS. If anything it would probably cause more problems and let’s face it this country has enough to deal with. Adding an unnecessary debate would only hurt the country as a whole. Even limiting peoples access to the internet with bills like SOPA would only hold back the country. One of the world’s greatest strengths right now is having access to just about whatever information they need. Implementing a TOS would just make users upset and drive them away from internet use. The internet is a tool for everyone, unfortunately the biggest problem I see with it, is the people who use it illegally to cause harm to others. Hackers and privacy invaders are what the government should be aiming to stop, not prevent, limit, or add restrictions to everyday users.