Did you agree to the Terms of Service? - You probably did.

The countless click-and-agree-contracts populating the Web are veritable gate keepers of the gated communities making up todays Web 2.0 net culture. You need to agree in order to get access to a given service, but did you actually ever take the time to read through any of these contracts?

Gate peepin' is an open source tool that alters the browsing experience of different Web 2.0-service platforms according to the Terms of Service regulating the services.

The project is a Firefox extension that compares the Terms of Service document with the text content of a site and re-edits it by inserting phrases from the regulations into the content of the site.

The Internet services of Web 2.0 are acting as community platforms for users to engage and participate in the creation and development of content. In this way new kinds of private-public spaces are appearing, spaces which are supposedly democratic i.e. created and controlled by the users as suggested by the companies with tag-lines like 'Second Life - Your World. Your Imagination.' or names such as 'YouTube' or Myspace', but at the same time spaces where the means of control are non-transparent and users rights hardly exist if any.

Each service platform defines its own regulative framework. This makes browsing the net a continuous travel between territories of different regulations, like a landscape of gated communities, where the regulations, however, are invisible.

As an artistic intervention Gate peepin' allows its users a peep into the otherwise not so accessible layers of regulations governing the use of so called democratic web spaces.

Most important features:
* PEEP IN TEXT
* PEEP SUMMARY
* CUSTOMIZABLE APPEARENCE
* USERS SHARING

 PEEP IN TEXT: Gate peepin' forces the regulations of the Terms of Services to leave traces within the content of the site. It re-edits the text of a visited website by inserting phrases from the terms directly into the site, thus turning the meaning of both the terms of service documents and the website content upside down.

The outcome of the juxtaposition of the two texts is a humorous and absurd form of generative everyday life poetry reflecting on the relationship between the regulations and the content.

PEEP SUMMARY: Whenever a site is visited Gate peepin' intergrates a summary of the Terms of Services governing the site into the browser window.

The summary includes an estimation of the time it would take an average reader to read the entire ToS document and it features a list of keywords and keyphrases and their occurencies along with a direct link to the ToS of the visited site.



The summary comes with a default list of filters that includes: location, licenses, liability, ownership, behaviour, consequences, distribution and security. However, the filters are fully customizable and it is possible for the users to alter the existing or create their own if they would like to keep an eye on specific word or phrase.

CUSTOMIZABLE APPEARENCE: Customizable appearance. It is possible to customize the way Gate peepin' intergrates the Terms of Services into the text.

Examples of different appearances for Facebook's log-in site:

Default :

ToS blending in with the existing layout of the website:


 
USERS SHARING = GATE PEEPIN' EXPANDING: Gate peepin' allows users to add and share new services - thus helping Gate peepin' to cover even more online services.

Download and install Gate peepin' from http://www.gatepeepin.org

Gate peepin' is a project by the danish media artist Linda Hilfling. It was produced during Linda's residency at the Netherlands Media Art Institute September-December 2008

The firefox extension was made in collaboration with Michael van Schaik.

The code is released under GNU GPL