Terms of Agreement

[+Frolickin]

The new cache submittal page has a checkbox for uses to agree to the Terms of Agreement. I like know what I agree to so read this document just now.

 

A few thoughts . . .

 

Statistics

Third-parties (other than a merger and subpoena) cannot be provided personally identifiable information from Groundspeak. I read this that Groundspeak cannot idly stand by and have its data scraped. That would seem to be providing tacit approval.

 

No surprise, but Groundspeak withholds the right to use personally identifiable information to generate its own statistics on this site in the manner it chooses.

 

Use of Publishing Tools and Forums

(k) Collect or store personal data about other Site users.

I need help with this one. If I collect e-mail addresses and urls of cachers through the web site, I am in violation of the Terms of Agreement. I understand the intent of the restriction, but this is poorly conceived.

 

(a) Upload, post or otherwise transmit any content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, slanderous, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, embarrassing, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable to any other person or entity.

There are many threads that violate this. I do not see Groundspeak curtailing any of it. Who is to be the arbiter of these issues? If I say I am embarrassed or object to a post, the person who wrote it is in violation of the Terms of Agreement. If Groundspeak does not take action, I am certain this clause would fold under scrutiny. Of course, that does not violate the entire Agreement, but it casts the Agreement as suspect.

 

Guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of the information available

Throughout the Terms of Agreement the above phrase is used. I understand it is a CYA move, but it instills not a bit of confidence that one cannot stand behind the accuracy of what he posts. There was a time when men stood behind their work. Yeah, they got burned and now hire lawyers. That is a demerit to our capitalism.

 

Fro.

 

________________________________________

Geocaching . . . hiking with a purpose

[+parkrrrr]

quote:

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Originally posted by Frolickin:

_Use of Publishing Tools and Forums_

_(k) Collect or store personal data about other Site users. _

I need help with this one. If I collect e-mail addresses and urls of cachers through the web site, I am in violation of the Terms of Agreement. I understand the intent of the restriction, but this is poorly conceived.

---

It's actually conceivably worse than that. Just by knowing that Markwell's first name is Kelly and he lives near Chicago, you're technically in violation of that clause of the agreement. Not that anyone would press the matter, but I'm certainly going to give a second thought to placing any more caches on geocaching.com if I have to agree to something I can't possibly hold up my end of.

 

[+Renegade Knight]

There is a difference between collecting information from the site and establshing relationships based on a common activity (geocaching) where the site serves at a communications tool. Further the site provides the means for direct communications.

 

I don't think that can be taken to say that the relationships and therefore personal 'data' we develop due to geocaching and this site are verbotten.

 

As for the rest. In my work I'm often asked to gurantee or certify. I don't and won't do either because per the legal meaning of the terms used, you flat out can't do it. Of course the legal meaning of the terms is why people ask for it to begin with.

 

The terms here that give me troule are "hateful" while it's my God given right to hate anyone I dadgum well want I generally don't. But I reserve that right. Embarrassing, sorry this one is just too open for intrepretation. Mostly I embarrass myself but that's forbidden also. Lastly we have "Otherwise Objectionable" Again open to any intrepretation at all.

 

Lastly I come from a long line of Poor White Trash. I reserve the right to make fun of everyone to a resonable limit of humor.

 

Entity's I give no rights or creedence too except those specifily allowed by law and clamied by the entity. Entities can't vote, Have no feelings, can't hate, and have no ethnic background. Their officers and owners may but that's different.

[+RobAGD]

A few things to cover here guys.

 

I help run another forum that tends to see a lot of flames eg "my x is better than your Y" kinda thing.

 

If you just go about locking threads and delete post without a set of guide lines then you have no real backing on WHY you did it.

 

Granted some things are very open to interpation of teh reader, we have to make that call if its in good taste or in a hatefull manner.

 

Another thing is that Jeremy OWNS these forums, they are private and are subject to the owners impossed set of rules. There is no freadom of speach here other than what is granted by the owner, If you violate the rule on that matter you can guess that the post or your account might be removed.

 

As to the mining of infomation. Lets say someone post a clever doodad in thier sig, that will report to him or her that ip address or host name of any one that read his post ? Or someone figures out another ay to do something along the same vein and getting passwords or other private info ?

 

Just some thoughs from someone that has to deal with things like this on a daily basis elsewhere.

 

-Robert

[+parkrrrr]

quote:

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Originally posted by RobAGD:

As to the mining of infomation. Lets say someone post a clever doodad in thier sig, that will report to him or her that ip address or host name of any one that read his post ?

---

Oh, nobody would ever do that. (for the small number of people who are both smart enough to get that and paranoid enough to care, full disclosure: Almost any web server logs accesses by IP address, date, and page accessed. So does mine. For the purpose of generating detailed statistics, I also log the referring website if your browser provides it. Like most website logs, the data expires after a few days. I've used those logs on occasion to identify sock puppets, both official and unofficial, but that's all I'm saying about that. If you don't want to show up in my logs, don't access my web server. There are two ways to do this: either you can turn off auto-loading of images in your browser, or you can add a line that says "parkrrrr.com 127.0.0.1" to your hosts file.)

 

 

[This message was edited by Warm Fuzzies - Fuzzy on August 20, 2003 at 08:19 AM.]

[+Frolickin]

Groundspeak will not sell, rent, or otherwise disclose Personally Identifiable Information to any third party, except: (a) in connection with any merger or acquisition of Groundspeak (or Groundspeak assets), including without limitation any restructuring activity with another legal entity; or as ( as required by subpoena, search warrant, or other valid legislative or judicial process. Groundspeak may, however, disclose non-personalized, aggregate data to third parties as may be collected and processed in connection with the Site.

 

Personally identifiable information must not be information about caches, handles, dates found, etc. The reason I say that is that Groundspeak sends me information every day that contains that information.

 

So, each datum in a PQ is not personally identifiable information.

 

With that in mind, there should be no reason why we couldn't string together all PQs and make them available elsewhere.

 

Because the information in the PQs is not personally identifiable information, there should be no restriction in reaching into the cache pages past the last five logs for a particular cache.

 

If those data were gleaned from the site, I see no reason why it could not be posted on another site.

 

From my reading of the TOA, nothing prevents this unless Groundspeak is in violation of its own TOA.

 

Fro.

 

________________________________________

Geocaching . . . hiking with a purpose

[+parkrrrr]

Subscription portions (if any) of the Site may contain additional terms and conditions applicable to use of that portion of the Site, including without limitation password usage and protection rules. If You subscribe to any service at this Site, You will be asked to agree to those terms and conditions as part of the subscription transaction, and those terms and conditions will be deemed incorporated into this Agreement by this reference.

 

One of those additional agreements may be seen here, as linked from the Pocket Query page. It says:

 

Licensee agrees to use reasonable effort to protect the Data and Related Materials from unauthorized use, reproduction, distribution, or publication.

 

Also, there's this in the main Terms of Use Agreement:

 

The Site and all content available on the Site are protected by applicable intellectual property laws, and are for personal and noncommercial use. All rights not expressly granted in this Agreement are reserved by Groundspeak or by the respective owners of the intellectual property rights. All materials available on or through the Site, other than Third Party Submissions (collectively, the “Site Materials”) are the property of Groundspeak or of its licensors and are protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. Groundspeak reserves the right to impose additional terms and conditions upon Your use and viewing of particular Site Materials, and any such terms and conditions may be posted on the Site in connection with those Site Materials. You may not reproduce or retransmit the Site Materials, in whole or in part, in any manner, without the prior written consent of the owner of such materials, except as follows: You may make a single copy of the Site Materials solely for Your personal, noncommercial use, but such copying must be consistent with any applicable additional terms and conditions and You must preserve any copyright, trademark, or other notices contained in or associated with such Site Materials. You may not distribute such copies to others, whether or not in electronic form and whether or not for a charge or other consideration, without prior written consent of the owner of such materials.

 

[+Frolickin]

quote:

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Originally posted by Warm Fuzzies - Fuzzy:

One of those additional agreements may be seen http://www.geocaching.com/waypoints/agreement.aspx, as linked from the Pocket Query page. It says:

_Licensee agrees to use reasonable effort to protect the Data and Related Materials from unauthorized use, reproduction, distribution, or publication._

---

 

Okay.

 

Now, if I do not download PQs, but rather scrape the data, where is that prevented in a TOA? It seems that one can access this site without agreeing to any TOA and thereby would not be in any violation.

 

So, I can't string together the PQs. That still does not answer whether or not these data are personally identifiable information. If so, there is still a problem.

 

If not, then there are still other options for getting these data without violating TOAs, I think.

 

Fro.

 

________________________________________

Geocaching . . . hiking with a purpose

[+Allen_L]

Not being a lawyer, I don't know if it will hold up in court but at the bottom of every page on geocaching.com, it says

quote:

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Use of this Web site constitutes acceptance of the Groundspeak Terms of Use.

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[+Frolickin]

quote:

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Originally posted by AllenLacy:

quote:

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Use of this Web site constitutes acceptance of the Groundspeak Terms of Use.

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You know, this is unacceptable. I do not agree to the Terms of Use Agreement. I am using this site until a compromise can be worked out with Groundspeak. If a compromise cannot be reached, I want all references to me from/on anything owned by Groundspeak removed. I am not agreeing to this document as it is written.

 

It is time for some words from Groundspeak.

 

Fro.

 

________________________________________

Geocaching . . . hiking with a purpose

[Elias]

quote:

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Originally posted by Frolickin:

It is time for some words from Groundspeak.

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The terms are about as standard and boiler-plate as you can get given the uniqueness of Geocaching. Chances are the majority of content sites you visit have very similar terms. Please email contact@Groundspeak.com with your concerns and questions so we can address them for you.

 

Elias

[+Frolickin]

quote:

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Originally posted by Elias:

The terms are about as standard and boiler-plate as you can get given the uniqueness of Geocaching. Chances are the majority of content sites you visit have very similar terms. Please email contact@Groundspeak.com) with your concerns and questions so we can address them for you.

---

 

Thank you for the offer, Elias, but this thread is the appropriate place, imo, to air this out.

 

The terms try to sound boilerplate, but there are issues. Some are in the first post of this thread. And while I agree with you that many sites may have terms that would concern me, the fact of the matter is this is the site we are dealing with now. Most of my content that I post on sites are sites that are controlled by me directly or my employer (again there, I have a large portion of the control).

 

The way the terms are written right now here at GC.com means that if I collate any information about cachers, I violate Groundspeak's standard and boiler-plate terms of agreement. It is not if I just want to place a cache that these terms kick in. It's if my browser has your address in the bar. It's when I reply to your post.

 

This is totlly unacceptable.

 

I am not agreeing to this policy as it is currently written.

 

I understand Groundspeak needs to protect itself. I understand that geocaching is new and presents unique issues. But by placing the kinds of restrictions this document does, you risk alienating your core audience. Yes, we are always free to go elsewhere. I would hope, however, you wouldn't want us to.

 

Elias, please address the issues in this thread. That will be a good start.

 

Thank you,

Fro.

 

________________________________________

Geocaching . . . hiking with a purpose