When you get to the stage of an online transaction where you’re asked to read the “Terms and Conditions,” do you actually read them? Or do you just check the box and move on? A London security firm once offered free use of a WiFi hotspot, provided the users agreed to sign over their firstborn child “for the duration of eternity.” Sure enough, some people signed. The company called that sneaky contract language a Herod clause, after the Biblical king who ordered the deaths of firstborn babies in Bethlehem. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Herod Clause”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
Let’s say you’re doing a transaction online, and you get to that part where you’re supposed to check the box that says, I have read the terms and conditions. Do you really stop and read the terms and conditions?
No! It’s anti-American. It’s like a novella in there. Who’s going to read that?
I know.
I just bought a piece of software that I’m waiting to use. I’m really excited. I have a project I’m working on.
Right.
No, I’m not reading the book.
Well, it’s not just in this country.
A couple of years ago, a security firm set up a Wi-Fi hotspot in London, and anybody was free to go and use this service.
But the terms and conditions included language indicating that the users agreed to sign over their firstborn child, quote, for the duration of eternity.
How many people did it?
How many people clicked the box?
Not that many, but some people did.
I’d be surprised it wasn’t all of them.
Right? I know.
When’s the last time you stopped and read all of those terms and conditions?
Well, maybe the software stuff is easier than the—the Wi-Fi always feels a little dicey.
You don’t know that you’re connecting to a real network, right?
Oh, you’ve trained me about Wi-Fi, yeah.
Yeah, you just don’t know what you’re passing through the traffic.
Yeah.
But where are all those children now?
Good question.
It turns out it was a stunt by a security firm to raise awareness about the importance of reading fine print.
But what’s interesting to me is the term that they use for this sneaky contract language.
They called it the Herod Clause.
Herod, as in the department store?
No, no.
The biblical dude.
The biblical dude.
The bad guy.
H-E-R-O-D.
He’s like the baddest of the bad in the Bible, right?
Oh, he was terrible.
He was the bad guy who ordered the deaths of all the young males in Bethlehem because he’d heard another king was.
Yes, the firstborn.
Yeah.
Okay.
Herod Claus.
Herod Claus.
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