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Why do people steal others TOS?
Hello,
I've been going through providers and noticed a ton of people steal others terms of service. [Removed example] In a customers point of view it is a bit low to steal a formal document and change minor things.
So to the hosts why do people steal others documents just out of pure laziness or what?
Comments
And I thought VPS6 had a bit of decent hosty-ness (is that a word?) in them.
Such always-repeating legal documents are often just licensed by lawyers who sell them to many different hosting companies, why would every company write an own one?
http://hostechsupport.com/index.php?file=TOS
http://www.ezforexhost.com/terms-of-service.html
http://www.adhost.com/service-agreement
You will find many many more similar ones
I did to I was looking forward to possibly signing up, but after that it just makes me want to think it over again.
Ours isn't copied word-for-word, but it takes points from a lot of other provider's TOS.
"Oh, that looks like a good point, I should add it to ours." No need to reinvent the wheel.
It's probably from a template generator. Take any line from those terms and search for them in Google. There are thousands of exact matches.
https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q="regulations+including,+but+not+limited+to,+the+installation+or+distribution+of+"pirated""
+1 when I wrote one I did that. Just when you can copy the first sentence of a TOS and find others hosts using it IMO it lowers my respect of the company (unless I know for sure they wrote it)
Hmm quite true.
Removed the example because I believe subigo was right about that.
I suppose the real difference is if the company knows what they're copy/pasting. For example, I know what's in ours, because I wrote most of it, and I bring up points of it when policing users.
A VPS host that I recently cancelled my service with did not seem to know what was in their own TOS, that they required that I agree to when I signed up. It was disappointing.
Exactly!
Sometimes we see funny contradicting things like host allow IRCd but don't allow IRC processes including irc daemons.
Imho. it's always good to check TOS of your uplink (datacenter) and then also consult with lawyer familair with your local legislation (something what most hosts don't bothers with, I believe).
I've offered this before on a much older thread: I generally don't mind folks using a variant of our own TOS, so long as they just ask first. I'm even willing to provide tips/pointers/advice to folks unsure about the process, or what they should/shouldn't include.
I remember a host featured on LEB a while back that specifically said "No perl scripts of any kind allowed" or something like that. I always look at the TOS to see if the provider has half a clue... if it's filled with crap like that, I stay away.
Hah, probably a nuclear response to the minor issue of
flood.pl, etc.@NickP Sorry if I'm misunderstanding, but did you find some ToS that is a duplicate of ours?
I think I died laughing when I read that.
:P
Sometimes its just easy, but sometimes you don't want to miss something. When I wrote the ToS for my business a while back I stole ideas from several major providers.
http://www.vpsland.com/terms_of_service.php @ @vps6net
If you paid any attention to the thread such as the Google link a few posts above you'll see it wasn't intentional.
VPS6.net - Creation Date: 2011-07-17
I believe it is one of the documents we sourced for our ToS, yes. I think this is very common practice, though, and I don't see a considerable amount of word-for-word overlap between the two where our respective services are concerned. I certainly wouldn't call it "copying," in the way that some hosts simply take an existing document and slap it up as their own -- VPS6.NET's policies have been proofed and tweaked extensively to say what we need them to say. After all, how many ways are there to present a generic Terms of Service for a subscription-based online service?
+1. After all if they really wanted to copy them they would have copied the other documents to, but they didn't.
Just for the record people who saw the comment about VPS6 I did apologize privately and was not trying to stir up any negative remarks nor any drama for them.
My Home Internet ISP goes into every little detail about some stuff.
Posting to Newsgroups
policies of the newsgroup. Many newsgroups prohibit the posting of advertisements, solicitations,
other commercial messages, large or binary files, and other material.
Subscribers may not attempt to circumvent the approval process for posting to a newsgroup. Posting
the same or similar message to more than 9 newsgroups is prohibited. Flooding or otherwise
disrupting a newsgroup is prohibited. Disruption is defined as intentionally interfering with the
normal exchange of messages or information in the group. Non-interactive clients which download
Usenet articles in bulk are prohibited.
Buckeye reserves the right to discontinue access to any newsgroup at any time for any reason.
**
Use of Internet Relay Chat (IRC)**
chat discussions and is not liable for any communications made via Internet chat.
The Service may not be used to access a chat server in any manner which is a violation of the
Acceptable Use Policy of that server. The Service may not be used to manipulate a chat server to
harass or disconnect other Internet users, or to gain unauthorized privileges.
Forging, altering, or obscuring identity (other than using a nickname from which Buckeye could, if
BEX Acceptable Use necessary, determine a real name) while participating in chat sessions is forbidden.
The Service may not be used to send additional chat messages to an Internet user who has indicated a
desire to not receive such messages. Sending messages which disrupt another Internet user's
equipment, including software, hardware, or user display, is a violation of this Policy.
Flooding of chat discussions is prohibited. No more than two simultaneous chat connections may be
maintained at one time. Automated programs such as "bots" or "clones" may not be used when the
account holder is not physically present at the device.
They also provide some of the fastest residential Internet in the country.
http://www.buckeyecablesystem.com/express/index.html @ 110mbps (Me no have, i have cheap
)
Their latency and AuP/ToS are much more better and intelliget then TimeWarnerCable (TWC).
I should also say that they run a private newsgroup for customers.
Internet Service for Ohio.
I am in Ohio.
"Were sorry, service is not available for you."
-.-
Southwestern Ohio is just Time Warner Cable owned isn't it? AT&T is here, but 12Mbps.
I think its more common with resellers of shared hosting, keeping it simple to copy/paste the TOS/AUP of the company tjat own the server.
But there are not a great deal of changes that can be made either... Like how many ways are there to write "irc is not allowed" (example)
I prefer just to get the data-centers TOS/AUP and modify it.
Allot of hosts buy a legal template and then just modify areas over time as things change, that's why allot of them look the same its not always a copy and paste.
This is pretty much the best way to go to ensure CYA.
CYA?
Cover Your Ass