Terms of Service vs Privacy Policy

A Terms of Service and a privacy policy are two different agreements that often appear together. The Terms of Service governs your relationship with the company: what you can do, what it can do, and how disputes are handled. The privacy policy explains how the company handles your personal data.

What a Terms of Service covers

A ToS sets the rules for using a service: account responsibilities, acceptable use, intellectual property, limitations of liability, arbitration clauses, and the company's right to change the terms. It's the contract between you and the company.

What a privacy policy covers

A privacy policy explains what personal data the company collects, why it collects it, how it's used, who it's shared with, and what choices you have. The focus stays on your personal information.

Why both matter

You could agree to arbitration in the Terms of Service and to broad data sharing in the privacy policy. Those are two very different rights given up in two different documents. Reading both gives you the full picture.

Example

A music app's ToS requires arbitration and caps liability, while its privacy policy allows sharing listening data with advertising partners. Termcon can analyze either document. For the privacy policy, it focuses on the data collection and sharing category.