Terms and Conditions Apply

May 17, 2021 12:14 PM

Try and avoid agreeing to these dastardly terms. Think you've worked out which buttons to press and which options to untick so that you can opt out? See if you can beat the devious tactics deployed on this site.
posted by grahamspankee (37 comments total)

Good game! (If we're going to play the "what questions were the hardest game," I offer the ones I missed: 10, 11, 12, 14, and 27.)
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 12:31 PM on May 17, 2021

That was horrid but I'm glad I did it.
posted by Faintdreams at 12:38 PM on May 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

24 though? I was able to do it after failing a ton, and didn't know what I did to make it work... Maybe that's the point?
posted by hoborg at 12:45 PM on May 17, 2021

I thought this was a double for a moment, but, nope, that was Cookie Consent Speed Run.

Besides daily-challenge word games, games about evil corporations are my favorite genre.
posted by box at 1:02 PM on May 17, 2021 [5 favorites]

Fun game! I missed 6, 11, 12 and 19.
posted by Too-Ticky at 1:18 PM on May 17, 2021

You know, going into this game, the absolute last thing I would have guessed is that knowing some Klingon was going to come in handy.
posted by wakannai at 1:37 PM on May 17, 2021 [10 favorites]

Do you want my comment, or are you a slovenly, vulgar, cowardly dullard who has the couth of a burro?
Yes, sign me up ______ No, I smell of rotting vegetation and would prefer to be left alone.
posted by theora55 at 1:39 PM on May 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

I missed 11, 17, 27 and 29, blast it. That was really fun!
posted by merriment at 1:44 PM on May 17, 2021

I missed 6 of them. 27 is a stinker.
posted by wellred at 1:49 PM on May 17, 2021

24 though? I was able to do it after failing a ton, and didn't know what I did to make it work... Maybe that's the point?

I dunno. I missed 4, 11 and 24 on my first run-through, 4 because I went too fast, 11 because I went too slow...but 24 I still have no idea how to get past. Just not lucky enough I guess?
posted by mstokes650 at 1:55 PM on May 17, 2021

I missed six of them. The one with "I'm feeling lucky" messed me up. I thought I knew a lot of them because I've done some UX/UI and I know what sorts of shirty behavior a lot of sites try to pull...but, nope. The multiple-negatives fried my post-tax-weekend brain. (I also heard several of them in Jack Sparrow's voice and just wanted to scream.)
posted by Tailkinker to-Ennien at 2:19 PM on May 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

14, 20 & 24 got me no matter how many times I went back and tried again. I don't understand the mechanism at all for those 3.
posted by mce at 2:22 PM on May 17, 2021

This is cute, but I was hoping this would be actual dark patterns and wording websites use to get you to agree to terms, notifications, and cookies. I've seen some pretty sneaky methods on sites I've visited.
posted by star gentle uterus at 2:45 PM on May 17, 2021

11 & 27 for me. Seems they are pretty consistently among the ones people are failing. A great/horrible exercise. I'm promptly sending it to friends and family. Thanks for the post.
posted by bcd at 3:01 PM on May 17, 2021

For 24, it seems to allow me to pass every time if I:

1) Click "I'm feeling lucky"
2) Wait for it to stop.
3) Flip the switch an odd number of times (e.g., once).
4) Click "I'm feeling lucky"

Optionally before (1), you can set the button to either state and it doesn't affect the outcome. So basically, it tests to see if you toggle the switch an odd number of times between the first and second presses of the button. I suspect this is not the intended behavior (nothing about the 'clue' indicates this should be the solution AFAICT), I figured it out by reverse engineering the thing using developer tools.
posted by axiom at 3:56 PM on May 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

I think the "ask one what the other would say" puzzle is incorrect. You can't ask the assistants "Which button opts out?" (in which case the truthful one has to tell you) you can only ask what the other assistant would tell you to do. But the truthful assistant works for the company and would tell you to opt in.
posted by straight at 4:05 PM on May 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

Hiding the 'Reject T&Cs' (actually it was 'Opt out of travel insurance') in the drop-down list of countries was actually done a few years ago by Ryanair, if I recall right.
posted by Hogshead at 4:14 PM on May 17, 2021 [4 favorites]

You know, going into this game, the absolute last thing I would have guessed is that knowing some Klingon Hungarian was going to come in handy.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:27 PM on May 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

Missed 6, 14, 29. That was great. I'm disappointed that the initial screen telling you to hit play to start wasn't itself a trap though.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 4:38 PM on May 17, 2021 [3 favorites]

"You need to enable JavaScript to play."
Is that a pass or a fail?
posted by one for the books at 5:01 PM on May 17, 2021 [5 favorites]

88% no. I must be old and cynical.
NO YOUR TERMS, AND MAYBE a little bit of CONDITIONS.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 5:18 PM on May 17, 2021

We attempted to access your data 28 times
and you gave it to us only once!
That's better than 92% of players
You took 236.03 seconds to complete the game
That's faster than 60% of players
posted by signal at 5:54 PM on May 17, 2021

My head hurts.
posted by interogative mood at 6:40 PM on May 17, 2021

Missed 6 as well, but got 'em on a retry. I didn't even see any of that gray text my first time through! If only all ToS agreements could be this much fun.
posted by lock robster at 6:44 PM on May 17, 2021

For those asking about 14 - the only way I got it was to see that the checkmark was black, the checkmark was white, the checkmark was black, and choosing the only option where the checkmark was white.
posted by komara at 9:57 PM on May 17, 2021

What was the deal with 27? I don't get it.
posted by starfishprime at 10:43 PM on May 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

Hiding the 'Reject T&Cs' (actually it was 'Opt out of travel insurance') in the drop-down list of countries was actually done a few years ago by Ryanair, if I recall right.

I remember that one clearly. I got so angry that I refused to fly Ryanair for years. I figured that if that was the ripoff I could find, they probably had lots of other ways to screw me that I couldn't identify.

Today my attitude seems naive, when the entire economy runs on these scams.
posted by fuzz at 12:36 AM on May 18, 2021

Fuzz > I still won't fly Ryanair. I'd rather walk.
posted by Hogshead at 1:33 AM on May 18, 2021 [2 favorites]

Spoiler:

I think 27 is possibly a bug on mobile. On the web it switches buttons on mouseover.
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 1:56 AM on May 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

Blocked on my work VPN because it's a game, thus preventing me from agreeing to anything. I win?
posted by EndsOfInvention at 1:57 AM on May 18, 2021 [4 favorites]

Blocked on my work VPN because it's a game, thus preventing me from agreeing to anything. I win?

*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING!!!!
posted by Thorzdad at 4:32 AM on May 18, 2021 [3 favorites]

Missed 14, 25 and 28 in 316 seconds... Not bad.
posted by Pendragon at 5:11 AM on May 18, 2021

Missed 7, 25 and 29. 7 asked me if I wanted to accept the T&Cs or remain unsuccessful, which sounded like a trick question, so I let it time out, which was the wrong choice. 25 I managed to tangle myself in logic whilst worrying about the timer, and 29... is there a trick to 29?
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 7:26 AM on May 18, 2021

I can't seem to get 22 right no matter what... am I missing something?

Otherwise that was one of three I missed. Missed 10 and 25 as well.
posted by Grither at 8:30 AM on May 18, 2021

Blocked on my work VPN because it's a game, thus preventing me from agreeing to anything. I win?

A strange game. The only way to win is not to play to be prevented by my employer’s IT department from playing.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:44 AM on May 18, 2021

Cannot figure out 22. There's one button with "Yes" , and nothing else is clickable. waiting out the timer doesn't help.
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 2:02 PM on May 19, 2021

@mrgoldenbrown: I don't know the exact numbers, but I believe that is the one where you can click on the word 'no'. It doesn't show up as a hyperlink, but the box goes away. Just click around the word until the box goes away. Avoid the Yes box.
posted by hydra77 at 4:09 PM on May 19, 2021