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Would you want the TL;DR on a site’s terms of service?

Answer: Well if you do, Congress is working on it.

A cursor hovering over a button that says “accept” below a checked box next to the words “I agree to the terms of service.”
Shutterstock/ninefotostudio
They’re perhaps one of the longest running jokes and sources of frustration for consumers of technology — the lengthy and jargon-filled terms of service that you must completely agree to in order to use a site’s or app’s services. We all know that most people don’t read them, and those who do probably wish that they hadn’t.

Fortunately, Congress might have a way to make it better.

A new bill introduced Thursday would essentially require tech companies to provide a quick and dirty summary of their terms of service before users agree. It’s called the Terms-of-service Labeling, Design and Readability Act, which has the very apt abbreviation TLDR.

For the uninitiated, TL;DR stands for “too long; didn’t read” and means that something was too long to read and the user would like a summary instead. It is basically the unofficial motto of anyone agreeing to a tech company’s terms of service.

“Users should not have to comb through pages of legal jargon in a website’s terms of services to know how their data will be used,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., about the bill. “Requiring companies to provide an easy-to-understand summary of their terms should be mandatory and is long overdue.”