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arXiv · 2502.08743

Signed, Sealed,... Confused: Exploring the Understandability and Severity of Policy Documents

Shikha Soneji·Sourav Panda·Sameer Neve·Jonathan Dodge
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Abstract

In general, Terms of Service (ToS) and other policy documents are verbose and full of legal jargon, which poses challenges for users to understand. To improve user accessibility and transparency, the "Terms of Service; Didn't Read" (ToS;DR) project condenses intricate legal terminology into summaries and overall grades for the website's policy documents. Nevertheless, uncertainties remain about whether users could truly grasp the implications of simplified presentations. We conducted an online survey to assess the perceived understandability and severity of randomly chosen cases from the ToS;DR taxonomy. Preliminary results indicate that, although most users report understanding the cases, they find a bias towards service providers in about two-thirds of the cases. The findings of our study emphasize the necessity of prioritizing user-centric policy formulation. This study has the potential to reveal the extent of information imbalance in digital services and promote more well-informed user consent.

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Shikha Soneji, Sourav Panda, Sameer Neve, Jonathan Dodge. 2025-02-12. Signed, Sealed,... Confused: Exploring the Understandability and Severity of Policy Documents. https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.08743

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