You must be joking.

It’s preposterous to claim that I’m misinterpreting legalese or that these terms are merely protective. Let me repeat myself here, over a month later:

Their front page and tour still claim:

Syncplicity’s storage is unlimited, so you never need to worry about how many file, gigabytes, or what-have-you of bandwidth you have left. Ever.

Their legally binding terms of service still state:

Syncplicity may, at its option, establish limits concerning Sync Files, including, without limitation, the maximum number of days that Sync Files will remain available via the Services or on the Site, the maximum size of any files that may be stored on or uploaded to the Site or Services and the maximum disk space that may be allotted to you for the storage of Sync Files on Syncplicity’s servers

If you don’t consider that false and misleading advertising, you clearly have a better faith in the people behind this organization than they deserve. Maybe you weren’t around when del.icio.us and flickr sold all their user’s data to Yahoo! or when GrandCentral sold their telephone recording database to Google … need I go on? You would do well to remember that small companies can sell out at any time, and that when they do, their new owners are free to take advantage of any contracts established with the original owners.

For an appropriate retainer fee, I’d be happy to draft a better agreement — and more importantly, to strike from their advertising any clauses which conflict with their legal agreement. .

But quite honestly, you could save yourselves the money by copying the oft-scrutinized agreements from the big boys, such as Microsoft’s Live agreement which includes such vital clauses as:

If we change this contract, then we will tell you at least 30 days before the change takes place.

And limits them to calling the police only when they actually need to:

(a) comply with the law or respond to lawful requests or legal process; (b) protect the rights or property of Microsoft or our customers, including the enforcement of our agreements or policies governing your use of the service; or© act on a good faith belief that such access or disclosure is necessary to protect the personal safety of Microsoft employees, customers or the public.

(I mean seriously — Syncplicity might call the cops or suspend your account if they suspect that you might embarrass someone?)

You could even work from Big Brother’s terms of service which rather than extend their right to publish your content to every other user … specifically reminds you that:

... all information (such as data files, written text, computer software, music, audio files or other sounds, photographs, videos or other images) which you may have access to as part of, or through your use of, the Services are the sole responsibility of the person from which such content originated … You may not modify, rent, lease, loan, sell, distribute or create derivative works based on this Content (either in whole or in part) unless you have been specifically told that you may do so by Google or by the owners of that Content, in a separate agreement.

They also promise that if they change their terms of service the

new Additional Terms will be made available to you from within, or through, the affected Services.

So you know you’re not going to have to keep pinging their TOS site to see if it changes…

Intent is extremely important in dealings in business. I suggest we look at the purpose this company is offering and make a decision “Is this what is helpful to me, or not?”

Personally, I’ve known several memebers of this organization for some time. Their intent is to serve their clients with a quality product and service.

I know this does nothingto protect the rights of the client. I would ask Mr. Bennet to draft a better agreement and submit it for legal review.