Malcolm Owen
Apple has sent out a notification to some Mac users to agree to new iCloud Terms and Conditions, four days before they are supposed to apply. Here's what's new.
Mac users have started to receive notifications that they must accept new Terms and Conditions for iCloud if they wish to continue using it. The notification is fairly typical practice for Apple, but it's apparently arriving earlier than planned.
Selecting the notification brings up macOS Settings, with a pop-up containing the new iCloud Terms and Conditions text. Scrolling to the bottom of the legal document reveals that the document was "Last revised: September 16, 2024."
This four days in the future from the time of this report's publication.
A supplied URL underneath the terms container leads to Apple's website, with visitors greeted to a message stating "The page you're looking for can't be found." This certainly makes sense if the text is supposed to go live on September 16.
Terms and conditions changes
The content of the 16 September 2024 text does make some changes versus the existing terms, last revised on September 18, 2023. AppleInsider's comparison finds two general categories of changes in the document.
First, Apple has made a number of alterations switching out Apple ID for Apple Account. It has already changed the reference to Apple Account throughout most of its software ecosystem, so an update to legal notices was to be expected at some point.
One more definitive change is under section five, titled Content and Your Conduct. An extra term is included in the list under Your Conduct. All other list items are included as normal.
The new addition states that users must not use the service to:
3. engage in any activity that exploits, harms or threatens children in any way, including without limitation producing, sharing, uploading or storing Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), Child Sexual Exploitation Material (CSEM) or any other content harmful to children.
The new line accompanies warnings to avoid stalking and harassing others, uploading or downloading unlawful or obscene material, intellectual property infringement, and other bad faith activities.
Marko Zivkovic
Amber Neely
Andrew O'Hara
9 Comments
My memory of the last time Apple did this was that it caused real issues with folks who did not accept the new terms. You could not log out of your account without accepting the terms, and you were perpetually hit with must agree to keep using the function type errors. It was a crazed vicious cycle!
Personally, I have zero desire to have any cloud integration in my computers, tablets, phones. Certainly others differ, but I find it more an annoyance than anything... two factor authentication increasing that annoyance by a factor of 10.
"Content harmful to children" is pretty broad. So a woman sending a topless picture to her SO is now a breach of Apple's rules? Or a screenshot of scene from a violent movie?
Here's the exact diff, courtesy of Kaleidoscope, if you are curious:
https://cvws.icloud-content.com/B/ARI0qrBpLPeSkopEQvyG99ww7xD3ASuwflf6y3spIN8sKEqwCL-dhqS_/iCloud+Terms+2023+vs+2024.pdf?o=Anrssybl_dzv6smlItp50o98z7rP8tiEzJjdrNPUe23m&v=1&x=3&a=CAogFZVPooo5M9Ab35GP6wPHVeGR_P1wEhUoFYw6bzvRoncSaxCl9cnXnjIYpdKl2Z4yIgEAUgQw7xD3WgSdhqS_aiVkrQFZd9qjm8LVdo6wWwCmHIWg7VQEmW7-YAvE2GXZ8xXLG-B9ciUqfQ0cK7aZNcCGC2Ztt6AaNs24n1kv4cn75-dhQJgWWe3XklE4&e=1726227245&fl=&r=5dd860f8-05a8-4904-a63b-80f7fcb9a119-1&k=hI7yoMk73XmDIV5xvgBfIw&ckc=com.apple.clouddocs&ckz=com.apple.CloudDocs&p=146&s=TfpByucUwWXb3ApBuE2pvH4GH7Y&cd=i
If Apple doesn’t handle it this way, a large army of people do gooders will cry Apple isn’t doing enough, in fact, those very same people and many governments will cry no matter what Apple does it is a can’t win either way so they’re just trying to do the best they can, a non iCloud user…. The do gooders ultimately want no encryption and a back door for our safety of course.