Unpacking Pinterest

Breaking down Pinterest’s Terms of Service

October 2015

Most Internet services (like social media platforms and gaming sites) have a Terms of Service (TOS) agreement, which can include supporting documents such as a privacy policy, acceptable use guidelines and other documents, that governs the use of that service.

It’s not surprising that the majority of people agree to these TOS without taking the time to read them (Meiselwitz, 2013, p.68), especially when you consider…

• The frequency of these policies (they’re not just limited to online services, many websites may also have a TOS and/or privacy policy).

• The time needed to examine these documents. It’s estimated that reading just the privacy policy of every site you may visit would equate to more than 200 hours per year! (Fiesler & Bruckman, 2014, p.2552).

• The high level of complexity and detail in these documents (Meiselwitz, 2013, p.68).

For those of you using Pinterest, here is a run down of the key elements you should be aware of when it comes to their TOS and supporting policies, as these are conditions that you’ve agreed to as part of the sign up process (whether you chose to read them or not).

When signing up for a Pinterest account, your access and use of the site depends on your agreeing to their TOS and privacy policy (“Terms of Service”, n.d., para.1).

It’s mandatory that you agree to these policies in order to set up an account and be able to use these services, a trait that’s common amongst all online services. (Meiselwitz, 2013, p.68).

When you look at Pinterest’s TOS and privacy policy, it’s clear that there are a range of supporting documents that these policies reference, that you’re also agreeing to abide by when you sign up.

On the surface, it looks like this.

Pinterest TOS

Privacy Policy

Copyright Policy

Acceptable Use

Advertising Rules

Terms of ServiceWithin the TOS, you agree that:

• You are 13 years of age or older,

• You will provide “accurate and complete information”,

• If you’re setting up an account for a business/organisation, that you are authorised to do so and are accepting the TOS on behalf of that entity.

(“Terms of Service”, n.d., para.2).

When sharing content on Pinterest, “you retain all rights in, and are solely responsible for, the User Content you post to Pinterest” (“Terms of Service”, n.d., para.5).

That means that you retain the copyright/ownership of any works you create and share on Pinterest, and that you agree that this content will abide by their acceptable use policy.

But, there’s a catch!

Sharing your work on Pinterest means you are granting a “non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable, worldwide license to use, store, display, reproduce, re-pin, modify, create derivative works, perform, and distribute” to Pinterest and its users (“Terms of Service”, n.d., para.6).

Under this agreement, Pinterest and all of its users have the right to do a raft of different things with/to your content, as long as they do so within the confines of Pinterest.

Even if you remove content or close your account, “Pinterest and its users may retain and continue to use, store, display, reproduce, re-pin, modify, create derivative works, perform, and distribute any of your User Content that other users have stored or shared through Pinterest” (“Terms of Service”, n.d., para.7).

So while Pinterest says you retain all rights to your work, posting content to the site essentially means losing control of its distribution and use within this platform.

While Pinterest has an Acceptable Use Policy that provides a detailed run down of the information you can and can’t post to the service, their TOS clearly states that they will not be held liable for any user submitted content or third party posts on their website that are:

• “Inaccurate,

• Objectionable,

• Inappropriate for children,

• Or otherwise unsuitable to your purposes”.

(“Terms of Service”, n.d., para.16)

Pinterest’s TOS also stresses that it is not responsible for any:

• Breaches of the site’s security systems.

• Loss of information.

• Losses that may result if you are unable to access the service.

(“Terms of Service”, n.d.)

Acceptance of the TOS also is an agreement that you waive the right to participate in a class action or trial by jury against Pinterest. (“Terms of Service”, n.d., para.18)

If you do want to take legal action against the service, it must be inline with the laws of the State of California and you’re also agreeing that you will file any legal action against them there. (“Terms of Service”, n.d., para.19)

When it comes to your account, Pinterest “may terminate or suspend this license at any time, with or without cause or notice to you.” (“Terms of Service”, n.d., para.12)

If your account is terminated or suspended, the TOS clearly states that you will continue to be bound by certain sections of their TOS (“Terms of Service”, n.d., para.12).

Privacy Policy• Pinterest collects personal and technical data from

users and may also receive information about its users from third party services.

• As signing up for Pinterest “does not require much more information than an email account” (Carpenter, 2012, p.9), Pinterest states that any personal information you provide them with is done so on a voluntary basis.

This includes:

• Any location data or payment information that you provide while using the service (“Privacy Policy”, 2015, para.3).

• Information Pinterest may receive from other social media platforms, like Facebook or Twitter, if you have chosen to link your Pinterest account to your accounts with these platforms. To find out what kind of information is shared by these services to Pinterest, Pinterest states that you need to refer to Facebook and/or Twitter’s own TOS (“Privacy Policy”, 2015, para.4).

Information collected by Pinterest “may be personally identifiable” and can be used and stored “wherever Pinterest does business” (“Privacy Policy”, 2015, para.22).

That could become a cause of concern for anyone that has shared payment information with the service.

Pinterest makes use of cookie files to collect technical data from the devices you use.

These cookies may be related to your use of the service, so Pinterest can remember your site preferences (ie the language you want to view the site in or remembering your password).

Pinterest also uses cookies that they say may or may not be associated with your use of the service.

Some of the cookies Pinterest uses are “persistent” meaning that they will stay on your browser, track your online activities and collect data from you until you physically remove them from your computer.

(Privacy Policy, 2015, para.7)

Acceptable Use PolicyLike most social networking sites, Pinterest’s Acceptable Use Policy prohibits the distribution of a range of material, such as content that is:• Sexually explicit, • Contains illegal information,• Shows and/or promotes violence or self-harm,• Promotes hate speech,• Abuses “non-public people”,• Breaches privacy and other rights,• And more.

(“Acceptable Use Policy”, n.d., para.4)

Copyright Policy

Interestingly, Pinterest’s Copyright Policy does not provide even a basic definition of what copyright is, nor does it provide any examples of what constitutes a breach of your or another user’s copyright (Gard & Whetstone, 2012, p.271).

It’s the “sole discretion” of Pinterest to take whatever action it sees fit against copyright breaches (“Copyright”, n.d., para.22).

If you regularly share images that you have created on Pinterest, there is somewhat of a safe guard in place to protect your copyright.

Pinterest can remove all pins containing your work, at your written request, if Pinterest find that they are infringing on your copyright (“Copyright”, n.d., para.11).

The bad news is that, “only identical copies of the image file can be removed by this function. If an image file has been re-sized or altered in any other way, then it cannot be detected or removed through this function. (“Copyright”, n.d., para.11)”

As you can see, there’s a lot of information to take in, and conditions to consider, when you read Pinterest’s TOS and supporting policies.

Remember this diagram from earlier?

Pinterest TOS

Privacy Policy

Copyright Policy

Acceptable Use

Advertising Rules

I described it as an overview of Pinterest’s policies that you’re agreeing to on the surface.

When you factor in all of the site’s policies and rules, and the third party documentation they suggest you read to fully understand what you’re agreeing to (“Privacy Policy”, 2015), it starts to look more like…

Pinterest TOS

Privacy Policy

Copyright Policy

Acceptable Use

AdvertisingRules

Accessing Device’s

TOS

Operating System’s

TOS

Internet Browser’s

TOS

Linked social media

accounts’ TOS

This!

When signing up for Pinterest, it’s important to remember:

Pinterest can update their policies at any time and without notice, unless they deem a change to be significant enough to tell you about it. If they update a policy, regardless of whether you were notified, your using the site after these updated policies come into effect is seen as acceptance of the revised TOS (“Terms of Service”, n.d., para.21).

If you’re signing up for a business account on Pinterest, I hate to break it to you, but

there are even more policies that you also need to agree to!

I hope this summary has helped guide you through the Pinterest TOS, supporting policies, and what they mean for you.

References• Acceptable Use Policy. (n.d). Retrieved from: https://about.pinterest.com/en/acceptable-

use-policy

• Carpenter, C. (2012). Copyright infringement and the second generation of social media websites: Why Pinterest users should be protected from copyright infringements by the fair use defense. Journal of Internet Law, 16(7). Retrieved from: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2131483

• Copyright. (n.d.). Retrieved from: https://about.pinterest.com/en/copyright

• Fiesler, C., & Bruckman, A. (2014, April). Copyright terms in online creative communities. In CHI'14 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2551-2556). ACM.

• Gard, E. T., & Whetstone, B. (2012). Copyright and Social Media: A Preliminary Case Study of Pinterest. Miss. CL Rev., 31:249, 249-279.

• Meiselwitz, G. (2013). Readability assessment of policies and procedures of social networking sites. In A. Ozok & P. Zaphiris (Eds.), Online Communities and Social Computing (pp. 67-75). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39371-6_8

• Privacy Policy. (2015). Retrieved from: https://about.pinterest.com/en/privacy-policy

• Terms of Service. (n.d.). Retrieved from: https://about.pinterest.com/en/terms-service

Unpacking Pinterest. Breaking down Pinterest’s Terms of Service by Helen

Theoharakis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0

International License.