MSN gives you the right to remain silent…

MSN Terms of Use: Spy vs Spy…and anything you submit could be used against you (emphasis added):

For materials you post or otherwise provide to Microsoft related to the MSN Web Sites (a “Submission”), you grant Microsoft permission to (1) use, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, modify, translate and reformat your Submission, each in connection with the MSN Web Sites, and (2) sublicense these rights, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law. Microsoft will not pay you for your Submission. Microsoft may remove your Submission at any time. For each Submission, you represent that you have all rights necessary for you to make the grants in this section. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Microsoft may monitor your e-mail, or other electronic communications and may disclose such information in the event it has a good faith reason to believe it is necessary for purposes of ensuring your compliance with this Agreement, and protecting the rights, property, and interests of the Microsoft Parties or any customer of a Microsoft Party.

Sure, this may be boilerplate legalize at this point, but to think that I very nearly clicked “I accept” without reading it to reactivate my decades-old Hotmail account. Well, I can kiss that account good bye!

Author: Chris Messina

Head of West Coast Business Development at Republic. Ever-curious product designer and technologist. Hashtag inventor. Previously: Molly.com (YC W18), Uber, Google.

3 thoughts on “MSN gives you the right to remain silent…”

  1. I know, they’ve had that for a while – I also remember from eons ago when I read the MSN Messenger terms of blahdeblah that anything you submit in a MSN Messenger conversation is automatically the IP of Microsoft and they can do what they want with it. It drove me away somewhat. Can’t remember if it applied to file transfers as well, in which case that’s a pretty fruity proposition if you send C++ code or something.

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