[HN Gopher] No Terms. No Conditions
___________________________________________________________________
No Terms. No Conditions
Author : bayneri
Score : 206 points
Date : 2026-03-24 15:58 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (notermsnoconditions.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (notermsnoconditions.com)
| johnplatte wrote:
| Comedically, this doesn't load from my IP address in the Russian
| Federation. (HN does.)
| stavros wrote:
| Yes that was one of the nine terms the site didn't have.
| bayneri wrote:
| unintended condition: cloudflare
|
| p.s. quick fix is "stop being lazy and move the single html off
| cloudflare"
| volemo wrote:
| I'm not lazy, I'm just tired of the fucking AI crawlers
| trashing my bandwidth.
| replooda wrote:
| > 4. Nothing here is guaranteed, including availability,
| correctness, continuity, or fitness for any purpose.
|
| There you go.
| badrequest wrote:
| hugged to death
| ayakut wrote:
| brilliant !
| tosti wrote:
| Schrodingers terms and conditions
| amarant wrote:
| Read carefully if you are of a feline persuasion
| gnfargbl wrote:
| > Access is not conditioned on approval.
|
| The Zen Koan of T&C's.
| Barbing wrote:
| Hope this slop doesn't get anyone into trouble.
| Last updated: never No further pages. No hidden clauses.
|
| Not sure "last updated=never" works, but I don't make terms and
| conditions websites.
| bayneri wrote:
| use at your own risk
|
| > 8. You are responsible for what you do, what you build, and
| what follows from either.
| FinnKuhn wrote:
| As far as I'm concerned this doesn't mean anything legally
| unless I missed something. Aren't you already responsible for
| what you do or build anyways?
|
| Or is this somehow meant to mean something else but worded so
| badly it can't be understood.
| steveharing1 wrote:
| Last updated: never lol
| knorker wrote:
| This does not read like it was written by a professional. Non-
| professionals writing licenses and T&Cs cause problems because no
| organization, for profit or not, wants to be dragged into court
| to get a "common sense" definition of a word or comma defined, at
| their expense.
|
| I've heard of large organizations reaching out to places who use
| amateur T&Cs and licenses, saying "if we give you $X, can you
| dual license this as MIT, Apache, BSD, or hell anything
| standard?".
|
| > Access is not conditioned on approval
|
| Is this obvious enough legalese to not waste tens of thousands of
| dollars in legal fees if you get sued?
|
| Note before you reply: I will not argue with you about how
| obvious it is. If you are _actually_ a lawyer then it 'd be
| interesting to hear your guidance, which I very much understand
| is not legal advice. If you're not a lawyer then I'm not.
| ndriscoll wrote:
| Sounds like a smart strategy then. Use an amateur license.
| People who just want to do stuff know they have your blessing.
| Corporations will stay away or pay up, not because you made
| them, but of their own volition. Everyone is happy.
|
| Of course even better is to simply have no explicit license,
| especially for something like code. Normal people can assume
| they can do whatever they'd like (basically, public domain).
| Lawyers will assume they cannot. The only thing stopping
| someone is their own belief in their self restrictions. i.e.
| you can use the thing if and only if you don't believe in my
| authority on the matter.
| iamnotai666 wrote:
| No explicit license is not basically public domain. In most
| jurisdictions it means the default is full copyright, so
| permission is less clear, not more. The practical effect is
| usually to increase ambiguity rather than grant freedom.
| ndriscoll wrote:
| That's the point: it's a rejection of the premise that you
| need these sorts of terms. You treat the law as the farce
| it has turned itself into. If people reject the farce, they
| can use it. If they support the farce, they can't (well,
| they can, but they think they can't). In a sense, an
| anarchist's viral FOSS license.
| knorker wrote:
| You are essentially saying that shoplifting is legal because
| as a civilian you are unlikely to get caught.
|
| This is a terrible take. All it takes is a litigious jerk,
| and you could get bankrupt. And that jerk will be legally in
| the right.
| ndriscoll wrote:
| I'm not. In saying people who want to share their work
| should just do so. If your goal is to not have terms, don't
| have terms. Don't lend credibility to the idea that you
| need to by default.
|
| Consider the war on drugs. Recreational marijuana is still
| highly illegal everywhere in the US, but there's businesses
| selling it that operate in plain view. How did we get
| there? Because people continued to point out how the law
| delegitimized itself until enforcement has started to
| become impossible.
| tekne wrote:
| You are essentially saying that walking is safe because as
| a civilian you are unlikely to get robbed.
|
| This is a terrible take. All it takes is an angry mugger,
| and you could get killed.
| knorker wrote:
| Walking is not illegal.
|
| That's why your analogy doesn't work.
| kemitchell wrote:
| > > Access is not conditioned on approval
|
| I practice law in California. I've written terms of service
| that many, many people here on HN will have agreed to. I read
| this line and didn't know what it meant, or what it intended to
| mean.
|
| That said:
|
| > If you are actually a lawyer then it'd be interesting to hear
| your guidance, which I very much understand is not legal
| advice. If you're not a lawyer then I'm not.
|
| There's no good way to validate lawyerdom on public social
| media like HN. And while the average lawyer probably remembers
| enough from law school or bar exams to know slightly more about
| Web terms of service and legal drafting than the average
| person, there's nothing to stop non-lawyers from reading up and
| learning. Eric Goldman's Technology & Marketing Law Blog is a
| great, public source covering cases on ToS and other issues,
| for example.
|
| The Bar monopolizes representation within legal institutions.
| Don't cede _the law itself_ to lawyers.
| knorker wrote:
| You can be competent without being a lawyer, sure. But if you
| see the other replies to my comment, you see why I would use
| this as a filter.
|
| The dumbest person can be right, but as a lawyer, your guess
| is much better.
|
| I don't cede the law. It's just that if I find this unclear,
| then J Random Hn commenter's opinion wouldn't reduce my risk.
|
| I won't be acting based on your opinion either, of course,
| but the quality of your reply is clearly in a different class
| from the other two.
| zephen wrote:
| > I will not argue with you about how obvious it is.
|
| Good. Don't. Because it is exceedingly plain, if concise,
| English.
| knorker wrote:
| This is exactly the kind of comment I politely asked people
| not to make.
|
| Did you see the actual lawyer saying they don't know what it
| means?
| zephen wrote:
| A statement that "If you're not a lawyer then I'm not." is
| blunt, not particularly polite or not.
|
| In any case, (a) it's not a request, and (b) if you truly
| want to control the narrative, then perhaps you should just
| do that from your own blog.
| tempestn wrote:
| I'm guessing it means that your use of the website is not
| contingent on you accepting (approving of) the terms
| presented. But there are plenty of other ways it could be
| reasonably interpreted. For instance, your access of the
| website is not contingent on the website operator approving
| said access.
| zephen wrote:
| > I'm guessing it means that your use of the website is not
| contingent on you accepting
|
| I don't think it says that at all. Because "accepting" is
| the right word here, as you point out. "Approval" is a
| different thing altogether. You can accept something
| without approving of it -- that's the main message in the
| Serenity Prayer and hundreds of self-help books that try to
| reframe that message, maybe to help it sink it, maybe just
| to grift a little.
|
| If it was literally spelled out as " _Your_ access is not
| conditioned on _your_ approval " that could almost be taken
| as a threat -- you will access this whether you want to or
| not.
|
| > For instance, your access of the website is not
| contingent on the website operator approving said access.
|
| To me, this is clearly what it says. "(Your) access is not
| conditioned on (our) approval."
|
| But, of course, since you read it differently, I have to
| agree that perhaps it's not as clear as I thought.
| usea wrote:
| It's common for non-lawyers to write terms and conditions, and
| other contracts.
| Retr0id wrote:
| I wonder how many one-sentence prompts have made it to the HN
| front page at this point.
| ellyagg wrote:
| I don't know, but it's kind of boring to speculate since
| computers easily beat us at chess and go.
| Retr0id wrote:
| Preventing computer-based cheating in competitive chess is a
| big deal (and I assume go also), because spectators tend not
| to want to watch two computers playing against each other.
| Yhippa wrote:
| "Alternative Terms" was the giveaway.
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| Why? For what?
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| Why do you say that?
| weinzierl wrote:
| Just today I asked an LLM:
|
| _" Often one generation values things much more than others.
| Boomers and their wristwatches. One generation is like 'only from
| my cold dead hands,' the others 'what would I even need this
| for?!' What are examples of things the youngest generation did
| away with?_"
|
| If OP were a checklist, the answer would have checked every
| point.
| tech_jabroni wrote:
| No alarms, no surprises
| joncrane wrote:
| My mind when to the same thing. Great song.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| I like how, even when the whole point is to not have any terms or
| conditions, there are still disclaimers. "Only for lawful
| purposes," "no warranty," "we are not responsible."
|
| Those are still terms and conditions!
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| This is the real salient point in this post in my opinion;
|
| It unintentionally demonstrates the limits of individual agency
| to avoid legal embroilments
|
| That is to say: it doesn't really matter what this person puts
| on their website because there is a judge and a sheriff
| somewhere that can force you to do something that would violate
| the things you wrote down because the things you wrote are
| subordinate to jurisdictional law (which is invoked as you
| point out)
|
| It's actually pretty poetic when you think about it because the
| page effectively says nothing because it doesn't have content
| that the license applies to
|
| If it's a art piece intended to show something about licensure
| all it does is demonstrate the degree to which licensure is
| predicated on jurisdiction
| goodmythical wrote:
| Right? Why include that? The law automatically applies.
| Including it in the license is just redundant.
|
| Had it simply read "You may use this site for any purpose." or
| "You may use this site." or "You may use this" or "This can be
| used." it would have the same level actual restriciton in that
| you obviously aren't allowed to use it to break the law
| regardless of what it actually says.
|
| And, having typed all that, I realize that there is another
| restriction in that it presumes that there is a 'you' using it.
| Things that are not 'you' cannot use it given that it
| specifically lists 'you' in the referenced parties. "This can
| be used" would be more permissive.
| zephen wrote:
| > Right? Why include that? The law automatically applies.
| Including it in the license is just redundant.
|
| Perhaps not. The law, as automatically applied, _often_
| include _implied_ warranties.
| lxgr wrote:
| I recently had to confirm to a brokerage that I won't be
| using the money I'm withdrawing for any illegal activities.
|
| A sure sign of a legal team or possibly an entire legal
| system having lost the plot. Hopefully only the former.
| bombcar wrote:
| For Good, not Evil, unless you're IBM(tm)
|
| https://gist.github.com/kemitchell/fdc179d60dc88f0c9b76e5d3
| 8...
| nickff wrote:
| This is probably a meek attempt at demonstrating compliance
| with Anti-Money-Laundering (AML) laws and regulations.
| Lawyers will often suggest this sort of thing, because the
| only cost is a slight inconvenience to the client, and it
| might suggest 'good faith' in the case of a prosecution or
| enforcement action.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| So, the entire legal system.
| josephg wrote:
| > I won't be using the money I'm withdrawing for any
| illegal activities.
|
| My guess is that this is so they can ban any drug dealers
| from their site without consequence. "They violated our
| terms of service your honour!"
| wrs wrote:
| That's simple CYA, and also ensures you've not only done
| the illegal activity, you've defrauded the brokerage and
| breached your contract with them, and they get a weak KYC
| defense as well.
|
| Similar to the "Al Capone" instructions from the IRS:
|
| >Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing
| illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Schedule
| 1 (Form 1040), line 8z, or on Schedule C (Form 1040) if
| from your self-employment activity.
|
| On the other hand, if you want to talk about these stickers
| all over Seattle saying you're not allowed to conduct
| illegal activities on the premises...
| janalsncm wrote:
| I still don't understand the CYA though.
|
| For the majority of banks, they do not want people to
| conduct illegal activity via their bank. For the minority
| of banks which don't mind it, nothing stops them from
| adding the clause anyways. A cartel bank probably cannot
| use the existence of the clause as a defense if they're
| still allowing illegal activity.
|
| If the purpose is to allow the bank to terminate accounts
| suspected of illegal activity, my assumption is they can
| already terminate for much less than that.
| wrs wrote:
| It's not just that they don't _want_ it, it's that
| they're liable for it themselves if they should have
| known it was happening. Asking you adds one more small
| layer of "we discouraged illegal activity and we didn't
| know about any".
| stevage wrote:
| Having a clear clause to point to when terminating the
| account seems useful.
| abustamam wrote:
| I'm curious if anyone has ever said yes to income from
| illegal activities. Moreover, I wonder if something like
| this would be protected under 5th amendment.
| j_bizzle wrote:
| It's almost like the most effective way to publish without
| T&Cs is to just, you know, omit the section and publish what
| you want without T&Cs.
| terrabiped wrote:
| Interesting question. I wonder what the default (implied)
| T&C would be if nothing has been explicitly stated. For
| example, publishing a source code without an explicit
| license doesn't make it open source.
| volemo wrote:
| I guess it'd be whatever the other party's lawyer can
| persuade the judge into.
| spalzdog wrote:
| When it's in the contract, then it means that when you break
| the law you both break the law and the contract. SHould it be
| necessary? Perhaps not, but in some places that makes a
| meaningful difference.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Now I'm paranoid. To your knowledge, which places does it
| make a difference, and what difference does it make?
| fastball wrote:
| Legal matters are almost never black and white. If
| someone does something illegal using my service, and some
| other 3rd party sues me as party to that illegal
| behavior, from a legal perspective having a clause like
| "no criminal behavior allowed" in there makes it easier
| for _your lawyers_ to argue "my client clearly didn't
| intend to authorize/facilitate such behavior". This
| argument is of course made much stronger if it is paired
| with behavior, like banning (or attempting to ban) the
| criminal user as soon as the activity was identified.
|
| But if you are paranoid you should speak with a lawyer in
| your jurisdiction.
| greycol wrote:
| In most places it doesn't make a difference to the
| outcome of the legal process what it does do is give you
| a quicker simpler off ramp from the legal process (which
| reduces costs) and may stop some idiots even trying to
| sue in the first place.
|
| "Do not iron clothes while on body" should not be
| required to not be found liable, but it does change the
| question in court from providing discovery for safety
| consideration, how comprehensive is the manual, how...
| and the costs involved with that to "Did the customer use
| the device in a way that was it was clearly labelled to
| not be used? Did any part of the product packaging or
| instructions contradict this warning? ...Dismissed".
| abustamam wrote:
| On top of that, I think my canister of Lysol wet wipes
| and many other bottles of cleaning chemicals says
| something like "it is against federal law to use this
| product for any purposes other than its intended use"
|
| Like, yeah it's illegal to do illegal stuff with or
| without the label, but at least Lysol could say "we did
| tell him that he can't use it for that."
| awesome_dude wrote:
| > Right? Why include that? The law automatically applies.
|
| Because the law applies - by that I mean if you don't put a
| disclaimer in then the law takes the view that you do provide
| a warranty, etc.
| volemo wrote:
| Does it take the view that I encourage/facilitate illegal
| use of my product unless I state otherwise in the T&C?
| awesome_dude wrote:
| Ask every account that has ever released information on
| drug use, lock picking, explosives manufacture, or
| "hacking" - they all say "for educational purposes only"
| for a damned good reason
| abustamam wrote:
| Encourage, probably not. Facilitate, possibly. That's why
| my bottle of Windex glass cleaner says "it's against
| federal law to use this product for anything other than
| its intended purpose."
|
| In either case it's illegal for me to use it for bad
| purposes, but how much I can blame on Windex depends on
| how much they let me know that I shouldn't do bad stuff
| with their products.
| shevy-java wrote:
| Right. The cake is a lie.
| daveguy wrote:
| "NoTermsNoConditions"... Proceeds to list 9 terms and
| conditions.
|
| It should be called bare-termsandconditions or minimal-
| termsandconditions.
| sph wrote:
| If anyone knows that rules exist to be broken, it's Jorji.
| Glory to Cobrastan.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Should have gone for the WTFPL DO WHAT
| THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE TERMS AND
| CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
| 0. You just DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO.
| catlifeonmars wrote:
| goes without saying
|
| that this site definitely
|
| does not, legally
| tsukikage wrote:
| Prior art:
| https://github.com/sorat0mo/wtfpl/blob/master/WTFPL2.txt
| jborichevskiy wrote:
| I know this is mostly parody, but I'm curious if anyone has good
| starter templates for something that covers the general stuff and
| doesn't require a lawyer to customize
| willks wrote:
| I like the [Basecamp
| policies](https://github.com/basecamp/policies). Explicitly
| open source, limited legalese.
| jborichevskiy wrote:
| Thanks! Basecamp's and Github's were a few of the open source
| ones I came across
| self-portrait wrote:
| No further update.
| layer8 wrote:
| > By accessing or using this site, you acknowledge and accept the
| following terms.
|
| I'm pretty sure this is already questionable in the EU.
| _vsrp wrote:
| ---
| layer8 wrote:
| It depends, not everything requires explicit consent. Where
| it doesn't, it's sufficient if the terms are clear,
| understandable, and transparent. The last criterion means
| that the terms must be prominently advertised in the
| locations where they apply.
| dbvn wrote:
| yeah - thats why we just ignore the EU
| 9dev wrote:
| Who is "we"? Given the EU is the single largest foreign
| market openly accessible to the USA and all that money y'all
| invested into your pension ETFs needs constant growth to
| avoid shrinking, and the EU is your best bet on that... I'd
| recommend not ignoring us :-)
| shevy-java wrote:
| Is that useful for anything?
| amelius wrote:
| The URL basically nulls the license agreement.
| modzu wrote:
| i do wonder if the world would be a better place if instead of
| lawyers we had cage matches
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Southwest Airlines got sued by some other company over, IIRC,
| color schemes. Southwest's CEO (Herb Kelleher) made an offer to
| the other CEO: They skip the lawyers and settle it with an arm-
| wrestling contest. The other CEO agreed.
|
| Eventually, they wound up selling tickets to the match, and
| donated the proceeds to charity.
|
| Now that's a civilized way to conduct a lawsuit.
| canacrypto wrote:
| A similar one I made a while back, inspired by South Park's
| disclaimer before each episode: https://github.com/jmrossy/south-
| park-license
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Remember when people started using WTFPL because it "sounded
| good", only to later find out it left them and their users
| legally liable? This is that but for websites.
| the_axiom wrote:
| amazing how such a simple website lags to scroll on my phone
| vincentabolarin wrote:
| Not sure how this is supposed to be useful, but I had a good
| laugh.
| tonymet wrote:
| use this if you want a corporation to use your content & IP to
| make money, while offering nothing to you (or the community) in
| return.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-03-24 23:00 UTC)