It’s time for an another exciting edition of FunTOS! Today’s fun comes from Verizon Wireless. You all know them as the second US wireless carrier to get the iPhone. If you are thinking about switching to Verizon or you are already a Verizon customer, take a look at the changes Verizon made to section in its customer agreement titled, “How Do I Accept This Agreement?"

Here is the text of the section before the change on May 1, 2011:

How Do I Accept This Agreement?

You accept this agreement by:

• Agreeing in writing, by email, over the phone, or in person;
• Opening a package that says you are accepting by opening it; or
• Activating your Service.

When you accept, you're representing that you are at least 18 years old and are legally able to accept an agreement. If you're accepting for an organization, you're representing that you are authorized to bind that organization, and where the context requires, "you" means the organization

If you don't want to accept, don't do any of these things. If you do accept, you can cancel a line of Service within 14 days of accepting without having to pay an early termination fee as long as you return any equipment you purchased from us at the time you accepted, but you'll still have to pay for your Service through that date. If you signed up for Prepaid Service, no refunds will be granted after 14 days or if your account has been activated.

Seems pretty straightforward. Now, to compare, here is the text of the section after Verizon published the changes on May 1, 2011:

How Do I Accept This Agreement?

You accept this agreement by:

• Agreeing in writing, by email, over the phone, or in person;
• Opening a package that says you are accepting by opening it; or
• Activating your Service.

When you accept, you're representing that you are at least 18 years old and are legally able to accept an agreement. If you're accepting for an organization, you're representing that you are authorized to bind that organization, and where the context requires, "you" means the organization.

If you do accept, you can cancel a line of Service within 14 days of accepting without having to pay an early termination fee as long as you return any equipment you purchased from us or one of our authorized agents at a discount at the time you accepted.

As you can see, Verizon made the changes in the third paragraph of the section. Let’s see what it changed.

For starters, Verizon did cut some things out to make the third paragraph shorter overall. While this does mean that there is less junk to wade through, it also means that Verizon removed information that may be important for you to know.

The first sentence of the paragraph use to say, “If you don't want to accept, don't do any of these things.” As the section talks about how a consumer accepts the agreement, it follows that the section should also talk about how a consumer can choose not to accept the agreement. However, Verizon elected remove this statement. Not a huge deal, as most people can probably figure out if they don’t do the actions listed they won’t be accepting the agreement. But ambiguity is never fun, especially with densely worded legalese.

The next change turns the third paragraph into one long sentence. It basically says that you can cancel your contract without paying a penalty if you do so within two weeks of accepting the agreement. However, you need to return any subsidized equipment you bought.

Overall, the idea makes sense, as Verizon doesn’t want you to be able to buy a phone at a subsidized rate without being locked into a contract (I’m all for consumers getting cheaper phones). But did Verizon have to lump all that information together into one long sentence? I did it two sentences that are much easier to read.

Should these changes alter your decision to choose Verizon as a customer? Probably not. But Verizon should be making its terms and conditions clearer for its customers. Thanks to TOSBack for posting up the changes. http://www.tosback.org/diff.php?vid=1729 If you aren’t familiar with TOSBack, it’s a great project from the EFF.