Unpacking Pinterest looks at the Terms of Service users agree to by signing up for, and using, this online service. This presentation was prepared as part of a university assessment (NETS5003 - Internet Power Politics, Semester 2, 2015, Curtin University).

1. Unpacking Pinterest
Breaking down Pinterest’s Terms of
Service
October 2015

2. Most Internet services (like social media platforms and
gaming sites) have a Terms of Service (TOS) agreement,
which can include supporting documents such as a privacy
policy, acceptable use guidelines and other documents,
that governs the use of that service.
It’s not surprising that the majority of people agree to these
TOS without taking the time to read them (Meiselwitz,
2013, p.68), especially when you consider…

3. • The frequency of these policies (they’re not just limited to
online services, many websites may also have a TOS
and/or privacy policy).
• The time needed to examine these documents. It’s
estimated that reading just the privacy policy of every site
you may visit would equate to more than 200 hours per
year! (Fiesler & Bruckman, 2014, p.2552).
• The high level of complexity and detail in these
documents (Meiselwitz, 2013, p.68).

4. For those of you using Pinterest, here is
a run down of the key elements you
should be aware of when it comes to
their TOS and supporting policies, as
these are conditions that you’ve agreed
to as part of the sign up process
(whether you chose to read them or not).

5. When signing up for a Pinterest account, your access and
use of the site depends on your agreeing to their TOS and
privacy policy (“Terms of Service”, n.d., para.1).
It’s mandatory that you agree to these policies in order to
set up an account and be able to use these services, a trait
that’s common amongst all online services. (Meiselwitz,
2013, p.68).
When you look at Pinterest’s TOS and privacy policy, it’s
clear that there are a range of supporting documents that
these policies reference, that you’re also agreeing to abide
by when you sign up.

6. On the surface, it looks like this.
Pinterest
TOS
Privacy
Policy
Copyright
Policy
Acceptable
Use
Advertising
Rules

7. Terms of Service
Within the TOS, you agree that:
• You are 13 years of age or older,
• You will provide “accurate and complete
information”,
• If you’re setting up an account for a
business/organisation, that you are authorised to do
so and are accepting the TOS on behalf of that
entity.
(“Terms of Service”, n.d., para.2).

8. When sharing content on Pinterest, “you retain all
rights in, and are solely responsible for, the User
Content you post to Pinterest” (“Terms of Service”,
n.d., para.5).
That means that you retain the copyright/ownership of
any works you create and share on Pinterest, and that
you agree that this content will abide by their
acceptable use policy.
But, there’s a catch!

9. Sharing your work on Pinterest means you are
granting a “non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable,
sublicensable, worldwide license to use, store, display,
reproduce, re-pin, modify, create derivative works,
perform, and distribute” to Pinterest and its users
(“Terms of Service”, n.d., para.6).
Under this agreement, Pinterest and all of its users
have the right to do a raft of different things with/to
your content, as long as they do so within the confines
of Pinterest.

10. Even if you remove content or close your account,
“Pinterest and its users may retain and continue to
use, store, display, reproduce, re-pin, modify, create
derivative works, perform, and distribute any of your
User Content that other users have stored or shared
through Pinterest” (“Terms of Service”, n.d., para.7).
So while Pinterest says you retain all rights to your
work, posting content to the site essentially means
losing control of its distribution and use within this
platform.

11. While Pinterest has an Acceptable Use Policy that
provides a detailed run down of the information you
can and can’t post to the service, their TOS clearly
states that they will not be held liable for any user
submitted content or third party posts on their website
that are:
• “Inaccurate,
• Objectionable,
• Inappropriate for children,
• Or otherwise unsuitable to your purposes”.
(“Terms of Service”, n.d., para.16)

12. Pinterest’s TOS also stresses that it is not responsible
for any:
• Breaches of the site’s security systems.
• Loss of information.
• Losses that may result if you are unable to access
the service.
(“Terms of Service”, n.d.)

13. Acceptance of the TOS also is an agreement that you
waive the right to participate in a class action or trial
by jury against Pinterest. (“Terms of Service”, n.d.,
para.18)
If you do want to take legal action against the service,
it must be inline with the laws of the State of California
and you’re also agreeing that you will file any legal
action against them there. (“Terms of Service”, n.d.,
para.19)

14. When it comes to your account, Pinterest “may
terminate or suspend this license at any time, with or
without cause or notice to you.” (“Terms of Service”,
n.d., para.12)
If your account is terminated or suspended, the TOS
clearly states that you will continue to be bound by
certain sections of their TOS (“Terms of Service”, n.d.,
para.12).

15. Privacy Policy
• Pinterest collects personal and technical data from
users and may also receive information about its
users from third party services.
• As signing up for Pinterest “does not require much
more information than an email account” (Carpenter,
2012, p.9), Pinterest states that any personal
information you provide them with is done so on a
voluntary basis.

16. This includes:
• Any location data or payment information that you
provide while using the service (“Privacy Policy”,
2015, para.3).
• Information Pinterest may receive from other social
media platforms, like Facebook or Twitter, if you
have chosen to link your Pinterest account to your
accounts with these platforms. To find out what kind
of information is shared by these services to
Pinterest, Pinterest states that you need to refer to
Facebook and/or Twitter’s own TOS (“Privacy
Policy”, 2015, para.4).

17. Information collected by Pinterest “may be personally
identifiable” and can be used and stored “wherever
Pinterest does business” (“Privacy Policy”, 2015,
para.22).
That could become a cause of concern for anyone
that has shared payment information with the service.

18. Pinterest makes use of cookie files to collect technical data
from the devices you use.
These cookies may be related to your use of the service,
so Pinterest can remember your site preferences (ie the
language you want to view the site in or remembering your
password).
Pinterest also uses cookies that they say may or may not
be associated with your use of the service.
Some of the cookies Pinterest uses are “persistent”
meaning that they will stay on your browser, track your
online activities and collect data from you until you
physically remove them from your computer.
(Privacy Policy, 2015, para.7)

19. Acceptable Use Policy
Like most social networking sites, Pinterest’s
Acceptable Use Policy prohibits the distribution of a
range of material, such as content that is:
• Sexually explicit,
• Contains illegal information,
• Shows and/or promotes violence or self-harm,
• Promotes hate speech,
• Abuses “non-public people”,
• Breaches privacy and other rights,
• And more.
(“Acceptable Use Policy”, n.d., para.4)

20. Copyright Policy
Interestingly, Pinterest’s Copyright Policy does not
provide even a basic definition of what copyright is,
nor does it provide any examples of what constitutes a
breach of your or another user’s copyright (Gard &
Whetstone, 2012, p.271).
It’s the “sole discretion” of Pinterest to take whatever
action it sees fit against copyright breaches
(“Copyright”, n.d., para.22).

21. If you regularly share images that you have created on
Pinterest, there is somewhat of a safe guard in place
to protect your copyright.
Pinterest can remove all pins containing your work, at
your written request, if Pinterest find that they are
infringing on your copyright (“Copyright”, n.d.,
para.11).
The bad news is that, “only identical copies of the
image file can be removed by this function. If an
image file has been re-sized or altered in any other
way, then it cannot be detected or removed through
this function. (“Copyright”, n.d., para.11)”

22. As you can see, there’s a lot of information
to take in, and conditions to consider, when
you read Pinterest’s TOS and supporting
policies.

23. Remember this diagram from earlier?
Pinterest
TOS
Privacy
Policy
Copyright
Policy
Acceptable
Use
Advertising
Rules

24. I described it as an overview of Pinterest’s policies
that you’re agreeing to on the surface.
When you factor in all of the site’s policies and rules,
and the third party documentation they suggest you
read to fully understand what you’re agreeing to
(“Privacy Policy”, 2015), it starts to look more like…

25. Pinterest
TOS
Privacy
Policy
Copyright
Policy
Acceptable
Use
Advertising
Rules
Accessing
Device’s
TOS
Operating
System’s
TOS
Internet
Browser’s
TOS
Linked
social
media
accounts’
TOS
This!

26. When signing up for Pinterest, it’s important to
remember:
Pinterest can update their policies at any time and
without notice, unless they deem a change to be
significant enough to tell you about it. If they update a
policy, regardless of whether you were notified, your
using the site after these updated policies come into
effect is seen as acceptance of the revised TOS
(“Terms of Service”, n.d., para.21).

27. If you’re signing up for a business account
on Pinterest, I hate to break it to you, but
there are even more policies that you also
need to agree to!

28. I hope this summary has helped guide you
through the Pinterest TOS, supporting
policies, and what they mean for you.

29. References
• Acceptable Use Policy. (n.d). Retrieved from: https://about.pinterest.com/en/acceptable-
use-policy
• Carpenter, C. (2012). Copyright infringement and the second generation of social media
websites: Why Pinterest users should be protected from copyright infringements by the
fair use defense. Journal of Internet Law, 16(7). Retrieved from:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2131483
• Copyright. (n.d.). Retrieved from: https://about.pinterest.com/en/copyright
• Fiesler, C., & Bruckman, A. (2014, April). Copyright terms in online creative communities.
In CHI'14 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2551-
2556). ACM.
• Gard, E. T., & Whetstone, B. (2012). Copyright and Social Media: A Preliminary Case
Study of Pinterest. Miss. CL Rev., 31:249, 249-279.
• Meiselwitz, G. (2013). Readability assessment of policies and procedures of social
networking sites. In A. Ozok & P. Zaphiris (Eds.), Online Communities and Social
Computing (pp. 67-75). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-
39371-6_8
• Privacy Policy. (2015). Retrieved from: https://about.pinterest.com/en/privacy-policy
• Terms of Service. (n.d.). Retrieved from: https://about.pinterest.com/en/terms-service

30. Unpacking Pinterest. Breaking down
Pinterest’s Terms of Service by Helen
Theoharakis is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0
International License.