In the wake of adolescents, and adults too, assuming a greater online presence, it begs

the question: how much do these users value their privacy? Have they slightly peeked at the

cookie policy or terms of service of the applications they’re using or mindlessly checking a box

simply to access the site? After all, a whopping 81% of adults are concerned about how

companies are using their data; yet, 67% of these same adults have little to no understanding of

how these companies use the data that they are collecting (McClain et al., 2023), which is

typically an easily accessible piece of documentation that is visible on a sign-up or registration

screen.

However, many argue that the length of this documentation–typically spanning between

2,000 to 5,000 words for your most popular apps (Amazon, Youtube, X, etc.)–makes it

unbearable to sit through and read; Microsoft’s terms of service, holding the title of having the

most popular operating system in the world, spans an unfathomable 15,260 words (you could

read Sun Tzu’s entire Art Of War and still finish with ~3,000 words left!). This is exactly what

Omri Ben Shahar, a professor teaching contract law at the University of Chicago, expressed

disapproval over: “after I received one of their new versions on my iPhone. When I scrolled

down and it said, page 1 of 55, I emailed it to myself, printed it out, and it looked like a 30-feet

long monster of eight-point font. So to display its enormity, I hung it from the roof of the building

of University of Chicago Library, for all to see, to try to exhibit the length and the pointlessness

of trying to read the disclosure that we receive from all sorts of services (Cornish, 2014).”

Stressing how futile reading over this documentation is, shortening these agreements

may not even produce a substantial change to who is really reading the terms of service, as

much research already points to the percentage of people reading this documentation being

essentially zero (Cornish, 2014). Hence, people really do not care about their privacy even if

strides are being made to popularize privacy awareness.