[Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Draft Terms of Use for Review

[Thomas Dalton]

On 8 September 2011 22:13, Geoff Brigham <gbrigham at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> In the legal department at the Wikimedia Foundation, we have been examining
> for some time whether, as the 5th largest website in the world, we need a
> new terms of use agreement.  Given our size and the need to ensure good
> communication with our users, I think we do, so we’ve put ourselves to
> drafting a new version with the hopes that we could get your review,
> comments, and ideas.
>
>   - You can find the current version of our terms of use here:
>   http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_use .
>   - You can view the new draft here:
>   http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use

To what extent are terms of use like this actually meaningful? Are
there any precedents of them being upheld in court? If so, in what
jurisdictions? Does using a website really constitute acceptance of a
contract that everyone knows you haven't read?

If you're not actually going to be able to do anything with these
terms of use, then we shouldn't have any.