I’m a bit of an artist who among other things paints pin-ups, and something I’ve noticed recently is that the services I’ve been using since high school actually have restrictions not just against illegal or unethical use but also forbidding nudity, sometimes without much precision as to what is allowed (Gmail, for instance says you may not “transmit content that may be harmful to minors”).
While I’m not really worried about it, I am curious if there are any legitimate alternatives that don’t have these “prude clauses” in their terms?
Well, I would think that all services have something to say about using them for illegal activities. That said, here is Hushmail’s TOS: it restricts law breaking and spam. I’m not certain what you are asking: perhaps some quotes of offending language might help?
I get that part, and have no problem with that. It’s things like this from the Hotmail code of conduct that I was talking about:
“You will not upload, post, transmit, transfer, distribute or facilitate distribution of any content (including text, images, sound, video, data, information or software) or otherwise use the service in a way that… depicts nudity of any sort including full or partial human nudity or nudity in non-human forms such as cartoons, fantasy art or manga.”
If, for example, posting a link to a fantasy short story that mentions partial nudity trips their code of conduct… that just seems ridiculous to me.
That’s the sort of thing I meant. Thanks.
Huh. I didn’t know that about gmail. I send pictures and links to pictures that contain nudity through gmail all the time.
Oh dear, I guess that dirty email I sent my husband yesterday could get me kicked off Gmail. That sucks.
Seems to me this is just a CYA clause for these companies, I can’t imagine they are going to disable people’s accounts just for sending pornographic links - more likely, it’s just in place so that if someone is found to be running a child sex ring using their Gmail account, Google can point to their ToS and this ensures they cannot be accused of enabling it.
Those clauses are to cover their asses. I doubt they scan every single e-mail for offensive content. However, if anyone complains, they have the right to shut down the account.
Have you tried www.gmx.com? Those Germans are more lax about nudity.