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Somewhere, not all that long ago, I happened upon a website that required visitors to agree to the terms and conditions before they could get at any of the good stuff (whatever that happened to be...), and they nagged with one of those sliding things thatâs always in the way, no matter how far you scroll the page.
Whatâs the term for those, anyway? Iâve seen menus presented that way, as well as the social-links block (Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc.)
OK, my term for them is âannoyingâ, but Iâm sure thereâs a technical term that Iâve forgotten.
The people with the Terms of Use nag-thing at least let you dismiss it with a click.
Wait until e-ink becomes more flexible. Your new can-opener will nag you until you acknowledge all the ways you could hurt yourself or your children or pets with it.
From: Steve Schwarzman [mailto:steve -at- writersbookmall -dot- com]
Sent: October-18-11 9:44 PM
To: McLauchlan, Kevin
Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: The legalese pages
Another reason for ALL CAPS in these kinds of things, it seems to me, is so that the lawyers could then point out to the judge or the jury, "Look, there's no way this claimant could possibly have missed article 17, section 5, paragraph B. Not only did he actively mark the three checkboxes indicating that he had read the entire terms and conditions, and then enter his full name and email address twice, as required, to show his acceptance of the terms, we *even* took the extra precaution of helpfully making the entire text bold and in all caps that blinked."
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