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Whoever Reads the T&Cs Anyway?

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Empowering Teaching for Digital Equity and Agency (OCCE 2020)

Part of the book series: IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology ((IFIPAICT,volume 595))

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Abstract

Can a teacher enrol the whole class in an online service? Is she obliged to read the terms and conditions and legally agree on behalf of the students? What if the associated privacy policy sends data overseas? Should all the parents/guardians approve instead – and how long would that take? Copyright and copyleft concepts are contested, with each of them subject to disparate terms and conditions (T&Cs). With airlines, shops and even governments providing services online, these legal agreements pose an increasing burden on the populace. This paper traces the historical invention of copyright legislation, global agreements such as the Berne convention, and subsequent dissolution of that situation. The auto-ethnographic data from 48 online services over an entire year tracks the T&Cs presented to a single individual, and the estimated professional cost of their perusal. From these data can be deduced a AU$9b per annum cost burden to Australia alone, and a more global estimate can be made of the reading burden of such agreements world-wide. This is important to busy teachers who provide access to online educational resources in their classrooms, since their time is particularly valuable.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tasmania, Launceston, TAS, 7250, Australia

    Andrew E. Fluck

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  1. Andrew E. Fluck
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Correspondence to Andrew E. Fluck .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany

    Torsten Brinda

  2. Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

    Don Passey

  3. Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Therese Keane

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Fluck, A.E. (2020). Whoever Reads the T&Cs Anyway?. In: Brinda, T., Passey, D., Keane, T. (eds) Empowering Teaching for Digital Equity and Agency. OCCE 2020. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 595. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59847-1_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59847-1_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-59846-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-59847-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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