IBM
Information Technology
33
out of 100. Number 369 of 512, counting from the worst.
Where IBM does well
- Arbitration 4 of 20. Few problems found.
- Renewals 2 of 20. Few problems found.
- The current IBM SkillsBuild Terms of Use dropped the old binding-arbitration clause — disputes now go to U.S. Federal Court in New York, not forced arbitration, a notable improvement over peers that still mandate arbitration.
- IBM's standard B2B customer agreement requires at least three months' written notice before changing agreement terms, changes are not retroactive, and customers may request the change be deferred until the end of their current contract period — far better than 'continued use = acceptance' norms.
- Privacy rights are genuinely honored: deletion, correction, portability, and opt-out of targeted advertising via a data-rights webform, with Global Privacy Control (GPC) signals recognized as valid opt-outs, and previous Privacy Statement versions published for comparison.
- IBM explicitly states that as a public cloud provider it does not use personal information processed under contract for marketing and advertising without express consent, and publishes a public commitment that it has not provided client data under bulk surveillance programs (PRISM) or put backdoors in products.
IBM hands your personal information to ad-tech companies, analytics firms, and social networks so they can run targeted IBM ads at you and track whether you engage with them.
The fine print
6 clauses and findings from the draft archive, dated 1 October 2026. The plain English comes first; the small print is the company's own words. None of these has been checked yet.
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IBM hands your personal information to ad-tech companies, analytics firms, and social networks so they can run targeted IBM ads at you and track whether you engage with them.
We may share personal information with third parties, such as advertising technology partners, data analytics providers and social networks engaged by IBM to deliver targeted IBM advertisements on their platforms, to aggregate information for analysis, and to track engagement with those advertisements.
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Your browsing on IBM's sites and emails can be used to target ads at you on other websites — and in some regions, activity linked to your hashed email address is used unless you actively opt out.
Deliver targeted IBM advertisements on third-party websites based on information we or authorized third parties collect about your interactions with IBM websites, our content, emails, or, in select geographies, activity linked to your hashed email address.
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IBM can rewrite the terms whenever it wants; just by continuing to use the site you automatically agree to whatever the new terms are. Your only option if you disagree is to delete your account.
We may change these terms at any time. We will notify you if the terms change. ... Once any updated terms are in effect, you will be bound by them if you continue to use the Site.
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Changes to the privacy policy take effect just by you continuing to use IBM's websites — the law deems you to have read and understood the changes whether or not you actually did.
If a material change is made to this Privacy Statement, the effective date is revised, and a notice is posted on the updated Privacy Statement for 30 days. By continuing to use our websites and services after a revision takes effect, it is considered that users have read and understand the changes.
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Anything you post on IBM's learning site, IBM can use forever, worldwide, for free, in any media — including letting others use it. You keep ownership, but IBM keeps a permanent free pass.
By submitting comments or content to this Site, you grant IBM a perpetual, sublicensable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use, transmit, copy and display such content in any and all media now known or hereinafter devised.
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Older versions of IBM's consumer learning-site terms forced users into binding arbitration and banned class actions — you could not sue IBM in a real court or join others in a class suit. Note: the current version of these terms (effective 25 Nov 2025) removed arbitration in favor of New York federal courts.
WE EACH AGREE TO RESOLVE THOSE DISPUTES THROUGH BINDING ARBITRATION OR SMALL CLAIMS COURT INSTEAD OF IN COURTS OF GENERAL JURISDICTION. ... ANY ARBITRATION UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL TAKE PLACE ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS; CLASS ARBITRATIONS AND CLASS ACTIONS ARE NOT PERMITTED.
IBM SkillsBuild Terms of Use archive (effective 21 Sep 2020 to 05 Nov 2024)
How these were found
IBM is B2B-first and has no single public clickwrap Terms of Use for the main ibm.com site, so this scoring is limited to (a) the IBM Privacy Statement (effective 29 October 2025) and (b) IBM SkillsBuild Terms of Use (consumer-facing learning site, current version effective 25 Nov 2025, plus its archived 2020-2024 version). ibm.com/usen/privacy denied direct fetch (HTTP 403), so the Privacy Statement was read via IBM's own official PDF export at www.ibm.com/downloads/documents/us-en/1443d5ded24f4cb8. The binding-arbitration clause cited below is from the archived SkillsBuild terms (effective 21 Sep 2020 to 05 Nov 2024); the current SkillsBuild terms no longer contain arbitration. The IBM Customer Agreement unilateral-change clause (3 months' notice, non-retroactive) is from a partner-hosted copy of the standard ICA at usa.ingrammicro.com/cms/media/Documents/vendors/i/ibm/ica.pdf. No consumer auto-renew/cancellation trap documents were found — most IBM products are sold via negotiated B2B agreements.
These notes come from the original draft and are not independent verification.