The Terms of Service Agreement is mainly used for legal purposes by companies which provide software or services, such as web browsers, e-commerce, web search engines, social media, and transport services. A legitimate terms-of-service agreement is legally binding and may be subject to change.[2] Companies can enforce the terms by refusing service. Customers can enforce by filing a lawsuit or arbitration case if they can show they were actually harmed by a breach of the terms. There is a heightened risk of data going astray during corporate changes, including mergers, divestitures, buyouts, downsizing, etc., when data can be transferred improperly.[3]

Among the terms and conditions of 31 cloud-computing services in January-July 2010, operating in England:[6] 27 specified the law to be used (a US state or other country) most specify that consumers can claim against the company only in a particular city in that jurisdiction, though often the company can claim against the consumer anywhere some require claims to be brought within half a year to 2 years 7 impose arbitration, all forbid illegal and objectionable conduct by the consumer 13 can amend terms just by posting changes on their own website a majority disclaim responsibility for confidentiality or backups most promise to preserve data only briefly after terminating service few promise to delete data thoroughly when the customer leaves some monitor the customers' data to enforce their policies on use all disclaim warranties and almost all disclaim liability 24 require the customer to indemnify them, a few indemnify the customer a few give credits for poor service, 15 promise "best efforts" and can suspend or stop any time