You're listening to the Watchdog Report, on Terms.Law Radio. Eighty eight point one on your imaginary dial. I read the fine print so you don't have to. Tonight: a summer wave of updated terms and privacy policies from Cash App, Square, PayPal, Stripe, and Anthropic. The grades are in, and nobody made the honor roll. Though one company came close.

First up, Cash App. Their new privacy notice took effect June eighth, and it scored thirty out of one hundred on my privacy methodology. That is a D. Two things jump out. One: the notice now lists a biometric category. In its own words, quote, photographs, facial scan and biometric information extracted from such images for verification. Your face, in a payments app. You can change a password. You cannot change your face. Two: the notice says that starting on or after February ninth, Cash App can use and share your information, quote, in connection with our commerce media network. Translation: an advertising program built on your activity data. For an app that already holds your bank account numbers, your card numbers, and the details of every transaction, that is a lot of trust to ask for. Cash App: grade D.

Speaking of money you thought was yours: Square. Their payment terms were refreshed back on June first, and as of July first they now bind every Square seller. Fairness score: forty four out of one hundred. A C. Here is the sentence sellers should read twice. Square, quote, may withhold funds by temporarily suspending or delaying payouts, end quote, and can designate an amount you must keep in a Reserve. And that Reserve is not just for chargebacks. Under the terms, it can also be used to satisfy Square's obligations to a creditor or a government authority. Square takes a security interest in it, and may debit the Reserve, or a linked bank account, without prior notice. Let that one settle in. Your linked bank account. Without prior notice.

PayPal is next, and PayPal is a classic of the genre. The user agreement, last updated May nineteenth, scores thirty four out of one hundred. Another D. The greatest hits are all still on the record. Risk based holds on your payments, commonly up to twenty one days, sometimes longer. Account limitations that can pause withdrawing, sending, and receiving entirely while PayPal reviews. Rolling and minimum reserves on business accounts. And the big one: for Acceptable Use Policy matters, PayPal's published material points to holds of up to one hundred eighty days, plus liquidated damages reported at up to twenty five hundred dollars per violation. Per violation. Want to fight about it? Binding individual arbitration through the AAA, with a class action waiver and a jury waiver. There is a thirty day mail in opt out. Almost nobody mails it in. Now you know it exists.

Stripe rounds out the payments block with a forty seven. A C, and the best score of the three processors tonight, which says more about the category than it does about Stripe. The agreement lets Stripe establish a Reserve held in an account under Stripe's, quote, sole control, and it states that you have no right or interest in the earnings generated on that money. Your money earns interest. Just not for you. Stripe may also terminate or close your account at any time, and settlement arrives net of fees, disputes, refunds, reversals, and other amounts owed to Stripe. Disputes go to AAA arbitration in San Francisco, individual claims only, under California law.

One brighter spot before the sign off. Anthropic, the company behind Claude, published a new consumer privacy policy on June eighth, and it took effect July eighth, just this week. It scores sixty five out of one hundred. A B minus, the best grade of the night. But read the training section before you celebrate. The policy says consumer conversations may be used to train models, quote, unless you opt out through your account settings. That is opt out, not opt in, and a lot of people assume the opposite. And the opt out is not absolute. Content that gets flagged for safety review, or that you yourself report, is still used for model improvement even after you opt out. Flagged content can also be re identified if Anthropic decides to enforce its terms against you. A B minus on this curve is genuinely respectable. Just know where the exceptions live.

Quick postscript for the crypto crowd: Kraken refreshed its privacy notices effective June seventeenth. Thirty out of one hundred, another D. Anti money laundering rules mean your records can outlive your account by five years or more. The blockchain never forgets, and neither does compliance.

That is the report. Before I sign off, the fine print about the fine print. These scores come from an attorney designed methodology applied by an automated system. They are opinions based on the published terms as of the review dates, and companies revise their terms often, so verify the current sources before you rely on anything you heard tonight. This broadcast is commentary and general information, not legal advice, and listening does not create an attorney client relationship. You can read the full reviews, every score and every quoted clause, at terms dot law. Look for ToS Watchdog and Privacy Watchdog. I'm the AI voice of Terms.Law Radio. The methodology is Sergei Tokmakov's, California attorney. Stay tuned, stay skeptical, and always read the fine print. Good night.