Agreements, contracts, and terms of service are everywhere these days. Every time we sign up to something on the web, we are at some point presented with some form of legal agreement. But how many of us read and absorb the entire document?

So much of what we do on the web is impulsive. Coming across a site which may benefit us in some way means quickly completing the form and assuming the Terms and Conditions are pretty much the same as everyone else. They are professionals, and aren’t going to catch you with legal jargon, right?

Thankfully this is indeed true for the vast majority of sites we might sign up with. But even amongst these good guys, there may still be clauses in agreements which, while not directly detrimental to us, are designed to protect the interest of site or service over and above protecting the interest of the user - i.e. you.

Over at PODyMouth, some clauses within Lulu - the online, print on demand publisher - have come under scrutiny. Each of the clauses mentioned there are no surprise, but it highlights the need to fuly absorb and understand the nature of what we are signing up to.

There is likely a great deal of subtle peer-pressure involved in site and service sign-ups. With a large organisation, such as Lulu, one tends to assume that all those existing users cannot be wrong and therefore the agreement ill be just fine. The questions you should should ask yourself on signup, is whether the agreement is right for you.