General terms and conditions, privacy statements and cookie notices are known for their complicated, legal language and interminable texts. So who actually reads them carefully from A to Z anymore?
Author: David Janssen
To find out if the picture we have is correct, those documents from 34 different online companies were scrutinized. These companies operate in a variety of fields, including social media, gaming, streaming, dating, porn and in a wide range of online services, namely Google, Microsoft and Apple.
First, the general terms and conditions of the 34 companies were obtained through their websites. These were then analyzed. Based on the number of words, the reading time was calculated and a readability tool was used to determine the reading level of the entire text.
It is immediately noticeable that by no means all companies have a Dutch version of their general terms and conditions. Especially in gaming, Dutch general terms and conditions are often lacking. And that while the target group of those games is mainly children. So the question is whether they can know what they are agreeing to when playing those games.
Social media such as Twitter, TikTok and Reddit also do not offer users terms and conditions in Dutch. Finally, international porn sites such as Pornhub and xHamster have not translated their terms and conditions for Dutch users.
Do the surveyed organizations have complicated or simple terms and conditions? To compare them, a level of difficulty was determined for all Dutch-language general terms and conditions. The degree of difficulty was determined on the basis of European language levels, which range from A1 to C2. Very simplified texts have language level A1. Texts that are most difficult to understand are marked C2.
The average language level of Dutch people is B1. This level is characterized by easy words and short, active sentences. An example: in a B1 level text a word such as 'difficult' is used, while in texts with a higher language level 'complicated' is chosen. None of the general conditions examined meet language level B1: each of them is more complicated.
Most general terms and conditions have a language level between B2 and C1. Only 4 out of 34 documents are more complicated than that. You would expect Google or Microsoft to have the most complicated terms and conditions. After all, they offer many different services. Yet dating site Parship, in particular, appears to have the most complicated terms and conditions. To understand Parship's text, the reader needs the hardest defined language level, which is C2. Dating through Parship is really only for the higher educated.
Of all the categories surveyed, the average dating site most often describes their terms and conditions in complicated language. Indeed, Lexa requires a language level C1/C2 and Happn and Second Love like to make it complicated for their users with a text at language level C1. Even the terms and conditions of adultsite Meiden van Holland are described in a complicated way with a required language level of C1/C2 to understand everything.
Social media platforms Whatsapp and Snapchat make it easier for their users, describing their terms in Level B2. Gamers playing Minecraft and Candy Crush should have that same understanding of language.
At Google, by the way, new terms and conditions will go into effect on March 31, 2020, which they say will be more readable. However, the readability test shows that the difficulty level is still the same: B1/C2. Moreover, in an attempt to clarify the legal language, the text has become longer. Users spend as much as twice as long reading the new terms and conditions.
Imagine that you can understand all the texts studied, how long would it still take you to read everything? To find out, we assumed a reading speed of 250 words per minute. That is the average reading speed of Dutch people. The general terms and conditions of the surveyed organizations contain an average of 6,332 words, which amounts to a reading time of over 25 minutes per document. If you want to read all 34 surveyed texts, it will take you almost 14.5 hours. The difference between the shortest and longest text turns out to be large. The complicated text by Meiden van Holland is the shortest with a reading time of less than 4 minutes. The longest text is from Microsoft: reading those general conditions will take you over an hour.
Use the "group" or "color" selection criteria in the interactive visual above to visualize comparisons.
*YouTube is not included in the infographic above because YouTube is subject to the same privacy and cookie statement as Google.
General terms and conditions do not invite extensive reading. As a result, many users may not know that Dutch law is far from always applicable to terms and conditions. Of course, this does apply to Dutch companies such as Videoland and Meiden van Holland. If you as a Dutch user file a lawsuit for whatever reason against one of the social media, it is possible that, for example, Irish, British, Californian or Singaporean law will apply.
Privacy statements and cookie descriptions were also examined. Because a number of companies included information about cookies in the privacy statement and others did not, we chose to conduct the analysis on the entirety of both sections.
Of all 33 privacy and cookie statements, 15 were only available in English. Dating app Tinder has an English-language privacy statement, but the description about cookies is written in Dutch. YouTube has the same privacy and cookie statement as Google.
The average reading level in which the texts are written is C1. Reading a company's privacy statement and cookie description takes about 23 minutes on average.
As with the terms and conditions, the differences in text length are large. The shortest text comes from Second Love. Only a minute and a half is needed to read through the privacy and cookie description. The information from Microsoft takes the reader much longer: almost 2.5 hours. Parship, also on privacy and cookies, has the text that is the hardest to understand.
Use the "group" or "color" selection criteria in the interactive visual above to visualize comparisons.
This research was conducted to find out how complicated and lengthy legal texts of companies operating online are. The companies studied by VPNGids are well-known and widely used online services within their category. Conclusions are based on the most recent texts published by the organizations themselves on their websites.
The average reading speed of the Dutch is between 250-400 words. The more difficult the text, the slower it is read. Therefore, to estimate reading time of the texts studied, a reading speed of 250 words per minute was assumed.
The language levels were determined based on Accessibility's reading level tool. Accessibility is the independent Dutch expertise and research institute for ICT accessibility and corporate social responsibility in the field of internet, software and electronic applications.
This article can also be found in the AVG file
source: VPNGids
