Netflix 2011 Terms of Service contradict themselves on one point.
Here’s the section that caught my eye. I bolded some words.
Netflix is free to use any comments, information, ideas, concepts, reviews, or techniques or any other material contained in any communication you may send to us ("Feedback"), including responses to questionnaires or through postings to the Netflix service, including the Netflix website and user interfaces, without further compensation, acknowledgement or payment to you for any purpose whatsoever including, but not limited to, developing, manufacturing and marketing products and creating, modifying or improving the Netflix service. Furthermore, by posting any Feedback on our site, submitting Feedback to us, or in responding to questionnaires, you grant us a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free irrevocable license, including the right to sublicense such right, and right to display, use, reproduce or modify the Feedback submitted in any media, software or technology of any kind now existing or developed in the future.
Please note Netflix does not accept unsolicited materials or ideas for use or publication, and is not responsible for the similarity of any of its content or programming in any media to materials or ideas transmitted to Netflix. Should you send any unsolicited materials or ideas, you do so with the understanding that no additional consideration of any sort will be provided to you, and you are waiving any claim against Netflix and its affiliates regarding the use of such materials and ideas, even if material or an idea is used that is substantially similar to the idea you sent.
So which is it? Are they free to use ideas, or do they refuse to accept them? No matter how I read it, I can’t make the paragraphs agree with each other. What’s completely clear is that they won’t give me money, and I already guessed that part.
Maybe the document was made by bolting together boilerplate, as many of these agreements must be, and nobody checked whether the plates actually fit together. Never mind that millions of people have clicked Agree! Or maybe they just don’t care, they think the contradiction doesn’t matter for them. They come off as a little arrogant either way, don’t they? But that’s how it goes, terms of service are all about asserting power.
The 2015 version of the agreement is corrected. It tightens up the wording to separate “feedback” from “show ideas” so that the two points no longer contradict each other.
This version of Netflix's TOS downloaded 24 August 2011 and unchanged on 26 November 2011. This page last updated September 2015.