NASCIO negotiates new YouTube terms of service

State governments can sign a modified YouTube terms of service agreement stripped of problematic legal clauses, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers announced Jan. 17.

The association spent more than a year negotiating with the Google-owned online video service, said Charles Robb, a NASCIO senior policy analyst, in an interview. The resulting state government-specific legal agreement no longer contains language requiring states to indemnify YouTube or a requirement that legal disputes be settled under California law, he said.

In order to replace the standard YouTube terms of service agreement that state agenciess--perhaps unwittingly--may have entered into, state governments must request new terms through their state chief information officer, who forwards requests to YouTube through NASCIO. 

A NASCIO survey (.pdf) on state social media (including YouTube) use published in September 2010 found that after cybersecurity concerns, terms of service issues cause the most constraint in broader state and local use of social media.

Social media providers have been reluctant to negotiate directly with states, Robb said, since they lack the legal staff to deal with 50 different legal jurisdictions. The new agreement, by removing the provision requiring matters to be settled under California law, does open YouTube up to dealing with states under their own law. The company likely agreed to do so because the likelihood of litigation under a regularized, NASCIO-led agreement that maintains a list of state legal contacts has declined, Robb said.

The agreement is also a chance for states to take stock of who is posting on YouTube on behalf of their governments. "Right now they don't necessarily know who's using it," Robb said.

NASCIO signed a similar agreement in 2011 with Facebook and is now in talks with Twitter, he added. The revised terms of service are available on the members' section of the NASCIO website.

CORRECTION Jan. 19: This story has been updated to clarify that state agencies need only once submit an application to YouTube via NASCIO to operate under the state government terms of service. NASCIO will send monthly an updated list of state legal contacts to YouTube, but only as new state agencies contact the organization via the state CIO to operate under the modified TOS. 

For more:
- read a NASCIO press release on the modified YouTube TOS   

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