Risk Score
0 = very fair · 100 = very risky
Summary
This is Pinterest's Terms of Service, a standard social media platform agreement. The document grants Pinterest an extraordinarily broad, royalty-free, worldwide license to use, monetize, and distribute user-uploaded content without compensation. Users retain nominal ownership of their content but grant rights that effectively allow Pinterest to profit from it. The terms include mandatory arbitration and class action waivers for most users (except EEA/UK consumers), and Pinterest can terminate accounts at will. Overall, the document is somewhat typical for large social media platforms but contains several aggressive provisions, particularly around content licensing and liability caps.
Flagged Clauses
When you post anything to Pinterest, you give Pinterest and its partners essentially unlimited rights to use, modify, monetize, and redistribute your content anywhere in the world, for free, forever — even if you delete your account.
“By providing any User Content on the Service, you grant us and our affiliates and service providers, and our users, a non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable, worldwide license to use, store, publicly perform or display, reproduce, save, modify, create derivative works, monetize, download, translate and distribute your User Content, including for the purpose of promoting and redistributing part or all of the Pinterest Service.”
Pinterest can make money from your content — through ads, promotions, or other means — and owes you nothing in return for doing so.
“Nothing in these Terms: (i) entitles you to any payments or the right to share in any revenue from any monetization of User Content.”
Even after you delete your content or close your account, Pinterest and other users who have saved your content can continue to use it indefinitely.
“We and our users may retain and continue to use, store, display, reproduce, save, modify, create derivative works, perform, and distribute any of your User Content that you or other users have stored or shared on Pinterest.”
If you have a dispute with Pinterest, you cannot join a class action lawsuit or get a jury trial. You must resolve disputes individually through private arbitration, which is generally less favorable to consumers. This applies to U.S. users; EEA/Switzerland/UK users are exempt.
“You and Pinterest are each waiving the right to a trial by jury or to participate in a class action. All disputes must be brought in the party's individual capacity, and not as a member in any class or representative proceeding.”
Before you can even start arbitration, you must go through a mandatory 60-day waiting period after formally notifying Pinterest of your dispute. This adds delay before you can seek formal resolution.
“A party with a dispute must first send us a Notice of Dispute... After receiving the Notice of Dispute, Pinterest will respond within 60 days to attempt to resolve the dispute amicably. After the 60-day period has elapsed, either party may initiate arbitration.”
No matter what Pinterest does wrong or how much harm it causes you, the most they can be required to pay you (outside EEA/UK) is $100. This applies even for serious violations.
“In no event shall our aggregate liability for all claims relating to the Service exceed one hundred U.S. dollars (U.S. $100.00).”
Pinterest can terminate your account if it determines you violated any of its terms. Since terms incorporate multiple other policy documents, the range of potential violations is broad. There is a notice and appeals process mentioned, but it is not mandatory in all cases.
“We may terminate or suspend your right to access or use Pinterest for any violation of these Terms.”
If Pinterest bans you, you are permanently barred from creating a new account unless Pinterest specifically allows it. Pinterest has complete discretion over whether to grant permission.
“If we've previously disabled your account for violating these Terms, any of our policies or for legal reasons, you will not create a new Pinterest account without our express written permission, which is provided at our sole discretion.”
Pinterest can change these terms at any time. If you keep using Pinterest after changes are posted, you are considered to have agreed to them. You must stop using Pinterest if you disagree.
“We may revise, add, or remove any or all portions of these Terms from time to time... Your continued access to or use of Pinterest after such an update constitutes your binding acceptance of such changes.”
Pinterest uses your personal data to build a profile of your interests and serves you targeted ads based on that profile. The full scope of data collection and third-party sharing is described in a separate Privacy Policy not included here.
“To provide the Service, we need to be able to identify you and your interests, and we use your personal data to do this... Some of the things we show you are promoted by advertisers. As part of the Service we try to ensure that even promoted content is relevant and interesting to you.”
Pinterest makes no guarantees about the quality, accuracy, security, or availability of the service. If something goes wrong — including security breaches or data loss — Pinterest bears no responsibility.
“To the extent permitted by applicable law, the Service and all content on Pinterest is provided on an 'as is' basis without warranty of any kind, whether express or implied. Pinterest specifically disclaims any and all warranties and conditions of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.”
If you use Pinterest commercially without a business account and Pinterest gets sued as a result, you are financially responsible for Pinterest's legal costs and any damages.
“If you use Pinterest for commercial purposes without agreeing to our Business Terms as required by Section 2(c) of these Terms, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless Pinterest, Inc., Pinterest Europe Ltd., and their affiliates from any claims (including reasonable attorney's fees) relating to your use of our Service.”
Any ideas or suggestions you give Pinterest become theirs to use freely, with no compensation or confidentiality obligations owed to you.
“If you choose to submit comments, ideas, or feedback, you agree that we have no obligation to keep your feedback confidential or to compensate you for the feedback.”
Missing Protections
- No explicit data retention period stated in these Terms (deferred to a separate Privacy Policy not analyzed here)
- No clear process or timeline for data deletion upon account termination within these Terms
- No explicit guarantee of advance notice period before material term changes take effect
- No explicit right to data portability mentioned in these Terms
- No cap or limitation on the scope of the content license (e.g., no time limit or geographic restriction)
- No user compensation mechanism even when Pinterest directly monetizes user-created content
- No explicit process for disputing account terminations within the Terms themselves (deferred to Enforcement page)
- No explicit statement about what happens to saved/pinned content from terminated accounts in terms of user access
Fair Terms
- Users explicitly retain ownership ('all rights in') their User Content despite the broad license grant — Section 3(a)
- EEA, Switzerland, and UK consumers are explicitly exempted from mandatory arbitration and class action waivers — Section 11
- EEA and UK consumers have a higher liability standard applied to them, with Pinterest liable for foreseeable damages from material contractual breaches — Section 10
- EEA/Switzerland/UK users can resolve disputes in their home country courts under local law — Section 12
- Users are given an appeals process for content removal and account suspension decisions — Section 3(a) and Section 7
- Notice is required before material changes to Terms take effect — Section 13(a)
- Users are explicitly notified that they can delete their account at any time — Section 7
- Promoted/advertising content is disclosed as required to be clearly labeled — Section 1
- Users can adjust content recommendation factors through Privacy and Data Settings — Section 3(b)
Document information only — not legal advice.