terms of service

plural noun

: the legal terms (see term entry 1 sense 4) that set forth the nature, scope, and limits of a service (such as one offered through a website or an app) and the rules that the service's users must agree to follow

… Twitter users' complaints alerted the company that three of his messages violated the terms of service …

—Jake Tapper

… most people have no idea what is signed away when they click "agree" to binding terms of service contracts—again and again on phones, laptops, tablets, watches, e-readers and televisions.

—The New York Times

—abbreviation TOS

Examples of terms of service in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Lyft, in a statement to Newsweek, reiterated that its terms of service explicitly prohibit discrimination of any kind. —Flynn Nicholls, Newsweek, 29 Jan. 2025

However, the breach may have violated OpenAI’s terms of service and appeared to be an attempt to bypass restrictions on how much data can be accessed from the service. —Bruce Gil, Quartz, 29 Jan. 2025

But Cash App customers, many of whom have their bank account linked to the app, were misled by the terms of service to believe that disputes over transactions were the responsibility of their bank, the CFPB said. —Anne Marie Lee, CBS News, 17 Jan. 2025

While the app's terms of service are primarily in Mandarin, its privacy policies for children and teenagers are available in English. —Michael Gfoeller and David H. Rundell, Newsweek, 15 Jan. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1994, in the meaning defined above