Terms Analysis

ToS;DR (Terms of Service; Didn't Read) at tosdr.org is a community project that summarizes and grades the terms of service and privacy policies of major websites and online services, making the implications of these agreements understandable without reading thousands of words of legal text.

For OSINT investigators, ToS;DR provides intelligence about what data a specific platform collects, retains, shares, and what rights users waive when joining. This directly affects investigation methodology: knowing that a platform retains user data for a specific period, shares with law enforcement under certain conditions, or provides little notice for account termination helps investigators plan evidence preservation and legal process timing.

Platform terms analysis helps investigators understand what data each service likely holds and what legal process would be required to obtain it. A platform that explicitly retains all user data indefinitely is a richer legal process target than one that deletes data after 90 days. ToS;DR's summaries identify these retention-relevant terms quickly.

For investigations involving subjects who use specific platforms, understanding those platforms' data sharing and retention policies helps investigators prioritize which platforms to target with legal process and what categories of data are likely available.

The grade system (A through E) provides a quick assessment of how privacy-respecting a platform is — highly-graded platforms (A, B) impose stronger protections on user data while low-graded platforms (D, E) include terms that are particularly unfavorable to user privacy and are more cooperative with data requests.

Privacy policy analysis is also relevant for corporate due diligence investigations. Understanding what data a target company claims to collect and share reveals aspects of their business model and compliance posture.

ToS;DR is a community project and coverage varies by service. Major platforms are well-documented while smaller services may have incomplete or outdated analyses.