Who does a Terms of Service Benefit?

How many times in your life have you read the terms of service for something?  Most people could care less about what it has to say. The few others who do attempt a read will quickly realize their mistake and look for a way to move on.  Reading a contract when buying a house or car is one thing, but who seriously reads everything when signing up for a website or using new software? These terms are actually important, but we're not all lawyers and who has time for reading terms when time could be better spent on Facebook?  Terms of service are simply not consumer friendly and are a ineffective means of communicating for important contractual information. The terms are a contract between two parties, but only one side has any say what goes into it and consent is mandatory for service.  The one who writes this contract is the one providing the service.  Don't like the terms?  No service for you. This seems fair since ownership implies control. So if the United States government were to create their own terms of service for access to the internet, would it conversely imply the government owns the internet by restricting use to those who agree to their terms?

Criminal activity on the internet has greatly increased in the past decade and as result the government is under more stress than ever to regulate the internet and curb the prevalent illegal exchange of information.  Committing crimes on the internet can be very easy and crimes are committed on the internet everyday by unwitting criminals.  Terms of service drastically change things.  They make it harder for an adult to claim ignorance when the terms he never read, but agreed to, spelled out exactly what he shouldn't have done. Every american on the internet is held to a new vague standard of accountability defined by a ever growing terms of service.  When the U.S. government attempts to restrict interpersonal communication, the population lashes out and points to the first amendment which guarantees the right to freedom of speech without abridgment.  At a glance, a terms of service would be an abridgment of that right, but would a simple agreement stating you will not pirate digital content be too much?  Even a seemingly harmless start would be, because it would be facilitating a system that gives the government total control over who uses the internet and who doesn't.  The importance is not in what the terms say, but whether there are terms at all.  Like laws, terms of service don't just stay the same.  They will grow and with every amendment another inherent right will become given by the government or taken away.  The government does not own the internet and even if they may read our emails and secretly store data about us, they cannot limit our access.