8.1: Terms of Service Agreements

Negotiate with social media providers to have providers amend their standard terms and conditions to respect the unique status and needs of the federal government.

Other Information:

The White House Open Government Directive specifically calls for federal agencies to use emerging technologies to “open new forms of communication between a government and the people.” Federal agencies have been trying for years to overcome barriers that kept agencies from using the new forms of communication that were readily available to individuals and commercial interests. These impediments barred agencies from using, among other things, social media tools for mission-related purposes, such as public outreach, public engagement, personnel recruitment, training, and idea-generation. Another barrier was the terms of service that providers of free social media require users to accept before accessing their service. Their no-cost tools for social networking, blogging, and dialoguing would give the government the potential to reach and to hear from a nearly unlimited audience. But the small print in many of the providers’ terms of use contains provisions that federal agencies cannot, by law, agree to. Issues with terms of service were an obstacle to agencies who wanted to expand their ability to engage with the public. To lift this roadblock, a coalition of federal Web managers and others from across government, led by the GSA Office of Citizen Services and Communication, enlisted the help of enthusiastic attorneys in their agencies and the White House Counsel’s Office. Collaborating on language that would accommodate both operational and legal requirements, the coalition entered negotiations with social media providers. The objective was to have providers amend their standard terms and conditions to respect the unique status and needs of the federal government — to agree on standard language that all agencies could use with minimal tweaking to meet their own needs. By February 2009, an agreement with YouTube was finalized. The U.S. Government YouTube Channel was launched, and agencies immediately began posting their videos on the site. Since then, agencies have posted videos on 86 government channels on YouTube, and millions of YouTube viewers can access official videos from across government. Within its first 120 days, the U.S. Government YouTube Channel, http://www.youtube.com/USGovernment, received 176,000 views from more than 13,000 subscribers and continues to grow at a rate of 7 percent per month. The coalition moved on to other popular social media providers. Agreements have been negotiated with 35 providers, including Facebook, Flickr, and UserVoice. The agreements, which address legal terms of service concerns of agencies using social media, are posted on GSA’s online cloud storefront at www.Apps.gov. By using these published agreements, agencies will have a framework for negotiating acceptable terms that comply with their own policies for the use of social media and that meet their specific needs, expectations, and practices. The terms of service agreement with Facebook, for example, allows the GSA-led initiative USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov to set up pages to interact with and engage the public at http://www.facebook.com/USAgov. The initiative promotes information and services across government and helps people find answers to their questions. Without the agreement, USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov would not be able to participate in this popular space. Facebook has users in every country: 350 million users worldwide, with 200 million of those added in 2009. Seventy-four percent of the online population uses social networks, and three-fourths of them are on Facebook. The success of the terms of service initiative has attracted the attention of far-seeing social media providers, who want to add their products to the lineup on Apps.gov. The coalition has posted a model agreement that vendors can refer to in determining if their terms of service are compatible with federal law. It lists the points, issues, and concerns that typically arise in standard terms of service and are problematic for federal agencies, and suggests replacement language that would be acceptable to most federal agencies. Under this scalable plan, the roster of federal-compatible no-cost sources will continue to grow and be refreshed with emerging innovative offerings. Negotiating these terms of service has created a cost-effective way for all agencies to meet the requirements of the Open Government Directive. They now have free federal-friendly tools to consider for social networking, dialogs, blogging, and other means of online interaction.

Stakeholder(s):

• Office of Citizen Services and Communication


• White House Counsel’s Office


• YouTube


• Facebook


• Flickr


• UserVoice

Indicator(s):

Indicator:1

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