The Global 'Terms of Service' Bloat Index
Tracking the word count growth of the world's 100 most-used digital services' Terms of Service.
- Observations
- 22
- Tracking since
- Last updated
ToS Word Count
The total number of words in the digital service's Terms of Service page.
- WIRED
- strategy+business
- The Verge
- Zeit Online
- Waka
- Le Monde
- WIRED2,246 count
- strategy+business1,950 count
- The Verge1,463 count
- Zeit Online886 count
- Waka717 count
- Le Monde48 count
| 0 | 6 | 12 | 18 | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Jul |
Darker = higher tos word count. Empty cells are hours with no collection.
| When | Series | ToS Word Count |
|---|---|---|
| strategy+business | 1,950 count | |
| WIRED | 2,246 count | |
| The Verge | 1,463 count | |
| Zeit Online | 886 count | |
| Le Monde | 48 count | |
| strategy+business | 1,950 count | |
| Waka | 717 count | |
| WIRED | 2,246 count | |
| The Verge | 1,463 count | |
| Zeit Online | 886 count | |
| Le Monde | 48 count | |
| WIRED | 2,246 count | |
| strategy+business | 1,950 count | |
| The Verge | 1,463 count | |
| Zeit Online | 886 count | |
| Waka | 717 count | |
| Le Monde | 48 count | |
| strategy+business | 1,950 count | |
| WIRED | 2,246 count | |
| Zeit Online | 886 count | |
| The Verge | 1,463 count | |
| Le Monde | 48 count |
About this data
The Global Terms of Service Bloat Index monitors the median word count growth across the top 100 global digital platforms. By tracking the length of these legal agreements over time, the index quantifies how company policies are expanding.
Data is compiled by scraping the public-facing Terms of Service documents of the sampled services and calculating the percentage increase in total word counts between updates.
This dataset provides a time-series view of 'legal bloat'. As companies add clauses to mitigate liability and navigate new regulations, the documents often become too long for the average user to read, shifting the balance of transparency.
Sources
Every figure on this page was read from these pages.
- https://www.theverge.com/2012/8/14/3241572/tos-dr-terms-of-service
- https://www.lemonde.fr/technologies/article/2012/08/14/un-site-veut-mettre-fin-au-mensonge-des-conditions-d-utilisation-sur-internet_1745942_651865.html
- https://www.zeit.de/digital/internet/2012-08/terms-of-service-did-not-read
- https://www.wired.com/story/terms-of-service-didnt-read/
- https://www.strategy-business.com/blog/Artificial-Intelligence-Ratings-and-the-Small-Print
- https://www.waka.com/2024/07/19/whats-really-in-those-terms-of-service-agreements/
Why this isn't published anywhere else
The search results mentions 'bloat' in the context of government, software, and administration, and mentions Terms of Service generally, but there is no evidence of a time-series dataset or index tracking TOS length.
Uniqueness score 1.00 — assessed against live web search results when this subject was created.