To read, or not to read... the terms and conditions: PayPal agreement is longer than Hamlet, while iTunes beats Macbeth

Which? slams websites for making users agree to small print up to 36,275 words long

Watchdog lists the worst culprits and calls for changes



A consumer watchdog has launched a scathing attack on websites which make users agree to terms and conditions that can be tens of thousands of words long.



Which? said it was 'unreasonable' to expect people to wade through pages of legal jargon, then tick a box to say they have read and understood the small print.

It has produced a list of the worse offending sites - where T&Cs, as they are known, are longer than some of Shakespeare's classics.

Tough read: PayPal's terms and conditions stretched to 36,275 words - more than Shakespeare's classic Hamlet

Leading website PayPal topped the chart by containing more words than Hamlet.

The terms on Apple’s iTunes page is longer than Macbeth, according to the research.

A spokesman for Which? said: ‘We think it’s unreasonable to ask people to read prohibitively long T&Cs before they agree to use a service.

Feat of endurance: Reading every word of PayPal's terms and conditions would require considerable stamina

‘A slicker solution is needed, where websites flag up the most important parts of their T&Cs to consumers.’

Amazon, Google, Facebook and Windows also have enough words to fill a small novel yet expect them to be read as part of their contract with the customer.

The worst culprit is PayPal, a secure payment system for internet users, which has a terms and conditions box containing a total of 36,275 words.

It includes around 9,200 words on its privacy policy and the rest split on its shipping services policy, billing agreement and terms of acceptable use.

Hamlet has 30,066 words including the famous To Be Or Not To Be soliloquy and the moving ‘goodnight sweet prince’ speech at the end.

Tragedy: Some terms and conditions would take longer to read than Shakespeare's Hamlet

Weighty tome: Apple's iTunes required users to wade through nearly 20,000 words

A TOUGH READ: NUMBER OF WORDS IN T&CS

Paypal: 36,275

Hamlet: 30,066

Apple iTunes: 19,972

Macbeth: 18,110

Windows Live: 14,714

Apple iOS 5: 13,366

Facebook: 11,195

Google (inc Books/Chrome/Wallet): 10,640

Apple iCloud: 10,724

Amazon Kindle: 7,115

Amazon.co.uk: 5,212

Twitter: 4,445

Apple’s iTunes has a total of 19,972 words telling users what they can and can’t do while Macbeth runs to 18,100 in comparison, said Which?

For those who also want to use Apple iCloud then there are another 10,724 words to read through.

And before signing up to Apple’s iOS operating system, users are expected to read a further T&C folder containing 13,366 words.

Others are not as bad but still have too many words to expect the average user to read them all, said Which?

This includes Google which has 10,640 words in a new single policy and terms box which covers all its services including Chrome and Walet.