What are you really agreeing to when you click that fateful “agree” button? Terms & Conditions cuts out the legal lingo to spell it out in plain English.
Twitter’s recently launched video app Vine has generated massive buzz in its short life – both the good an bad kinds. The app has been praised as a “game-changer” that could usher in all-new art forms thanks to its unique functionality, which allows users to stop and start recording just by touching the screen of their iPhone to create “edited,” GIF-like looping videos. It has also been slammed for allowing hardcore pornography to make its way into users’ feeds – a “problem” Vine’s team has already done much to fix. But according to the app’s own rules, Vine porn isn’t really a problem. Let’s take a look at the app’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
Terms of Service
Porn is A-OK
Vine lists a number of things you cannot do on the service, all of which are completely standard. No hacking Vine, no copyright infringement, no impersonating other people, no spam, no harassment, no other illegal activity.
Noticeably absent from that list is any mention of pornography, or any other type of adult material. In fact, Vine’s terms make perfectly clear that users “may be exposed to Content that might be offensive, harmful, inaccurate or otherwise inappropriate.” So if you see porn on Vine, understand that it’s allowed to be there.
(In reality, the appearance of porn on Vine was a bigger deal because of Apple’s tendency to remove apps from the App Store that don’t properly alert users to the fact that they may run into some NSFW content. To appease the Apple app gods, Vine’s engineers have simply made pornographic content harder to find.)
Your content, Vine’s rights
Regardless of the type of videos you post to Vine, the company’s ToS dictate that using the service automatically grants it “a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).” That is to say, you still own your content, but Vine has the right to do damn near anything it wants with it.
Not only that, but Vine’s license to your content does not end if you deactivate your Vine account (which you do by emailing the company at support@vine.co). According to the contract, the section covering your content continues in perpetuity.
Afraid of change
The final key bit of Vine’s terms that you should know is that the terms could change at any time. Vine says that, changes are “material” (based on its own assessment), then the company will notify you via email that the terms of have been altered. If you keep using Vine after you receive that email, you have effectively agreed to the new terms – so make sure to read that message if it ever comes into your inbox.
Privacy Policy
Same old, same old
The types of information Vine collects about users should come as no surprise – its essentially the same as Twitter or other social networks. Which means you can assume your username, profile picture, any bio you write, any location data you provide and, of course, all the video posts are collected by Vine’s system. Vine does not, however, collect data from your address book, even though you can allow it access, which is definitely good. And, at this point, the company isn’t sharing your personal data with advertisers or other companies behind your back.
Everything is public
As I and others have reported, every video you post to Vine is completely public, meaning anyone can access the video through the app or on the Web, regardless of whether they follow you. Also, all the information included in your profile is also public, so tailor it accordingly. Also know that Vine allows third-party services to access videos posted to the site, which means your video could end up highlighted on websites like VinePeek and VineRoulette.
In short, what happens on Vine in no way stays on Vine – it’s out there for everyone to see. So keep that in mind before you go and post that your most intimate moments for the whole world to see.
