S&P Global
Financials
52
out of 100. Number 198 of 512, counting from the worst.
Where S&P Global does well
- No forced arbitration clause was found in either document — disputes go to ordinary courts, and the CapIQ Terms even let a negotiated client agreement override the site terms.
- On privacy, S&P's notice states it does 'not share, sell, rent or trade any of your information with third parties for their promotional purposes' (from a search snippet of S&P's marketing privacy notice; the full official page could not be fetched).
- The subscription price-hike mechanic has a real escape hatch: increases are capped at once per 12 months and you can kill the renewal within 30 days of the notice.
- And on termination S&P demands the opposite of data-hoarding — subscribers must permanently destroy all S&P data copies within 20 days and certify it in writing.
If you use Capital IQ/Market Intelligence as an individual, you give up the right to join a class action — every dispute is one-on-one against a $100B+ data company.
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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If you use Capital IQ/Market Intelligence as an individual, you give up the right to join a class action — every dispute is one-on-one against a $100B+ data company. There is no arbitration clause, but the class waiver plus a New York governing-law lock-in means small users face a court fight in S&P's home turf.
Any claim must be brought in your individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, collective, representative, multiple plaintiff or similar proceeding.
S&P Global Market Intelligence Terms of Use (Effective Date: July 16, 2018)
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Subscriptions silently roll over for another 12 months if you forget to give 30 days' written notice, and S&P can raise the price each renewal — a bare invoice counts as the 'advance notice' — leaving you just 30 days to cancel or pay the higher rate. Enterprise-standard, but the invoice-as-notice trick is how hikes slip through procurement.
The Initial Term of this Pricing Schedule ... shall be automatically extended for successive renewal terms of 12 month(s) each unless either party notifies the other in writing of its decision not to extend the term ... at least thirty (30) days prior to the expiration of the term then in effect. ... S&P may increase its fees and charges for any Service at any renewal term after the Initial Term ... by providing the Subscriber with advance written notice (which may be in the form of an invoice or other notification). ... The Subscription fee change shall go into effect at the commencement of the renewal term, unless Subscriber provides S&P with written notice of termination within thirty (30) days from receipt of such notice.
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If your company acquires or merges with another company that pays S&P more, S&P can bump your fees up to that higher rate mid-contract — and the contract declares that isn't even an 'increase.' An M&A event on your side can silently re-price your data subscription to the pricier of the two deals.
Notwithstanding anything herein to the contrary, if, during the term of this Pricing Schedule, Subscriber, directly or indirectly, (i) acquires substantially all of the stock or assets of another S&P client, (ii) has substantially all of its stock or assets acquired by another S&P client, or (iii) merges with another S&P client, S&P reserves the right to revise the annual fees payable hereunder by the most recent subscription price payable for the Services by such other S&P client. ... any Subscription fee revision subject to this Section 1 shall not be deemed an increase in fees and charges.
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S&P grants itself a free hand with your behavioral 'usage data' — any purpose, no compensation — and can move personal data across borders and hand it to vendors and third parties while monitoring your usage. The EU-facing CapIQ Terms add that your work email, phone, and tracking data may be used to market 'other products and services that may be of interest' and your usage gets reported to S&P's third-party providers and even your employer.
S&P may use Usage Data for any purpose, including but not limited to analyzing aggregated Usage Data to develop and improve its products and services, without notice or compensation to Subscriber and without retention by Subscriber of any proprietary or any other right or claim. ... In order to provide the Services, S&P may: (a) use, collect, store, disclose and otherwise process the personal information or data; (b) transfer the personal information or data to a different jurisdiction and/or to S&P Entities, vendors or other third parties; (c) monitor the Services to facilitate the operation of the Services and for license management and administration purposes.
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For the site terms, S&P alone decides which changes are 'material' enough to warn you about — anything else can change silently and your continued use counts as consent. For enterprise clients, S&P can unilaterally rewrite the Data Protection Appendix with 60 days' notice and it auto-applies at your next anniversary; the only consent asked is your continued business.
We will provide you with advance notice of any revision to these Terms that we believe is material by sending you an email and/or, posting a notice in the Services. Your continued use of the Services after the Effective Date above constitutes your acceptance of these Terms, as amended. ... S&P is entitled to update the DPA upon at least 60 days' prior written notice to Subscriber sent via email or regular mail. Such updated DPA will take effect upon the next anniversary of the Commencement Date of this Pricing Schedule.
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If S&P's data is wrong and costs you millions, damages are capped at roughly one month's subscription fees, and you must sue within one year or lose the right entirely. Jurisdiction is also one-sided: you must fight them in New York courts, but S&P reserves the right to sue you anywhere in the world.
IN NO EVENT WILL THE MAXIMUM CUMULATIVE LIABILITY OF THE S&P ENTITIES ... EXCEED THE FEES PAID AND/OR PAYABLE BY SUBSCRIBER ... FOR THE MONTH IN WHICH SUCH LIABILITY IS ALLEGED TO HAVE ARISEN. ... NO ACTION ... MAY BE BROUGHT BY SUBSCRIBER MORE THAN ONE (1) YEAR AFTER SUCH ACTION HAS ACCRUED. ... [S&P] may institute legal proceedings in any other jurisdiction in order to request immediate injunctive relief or specific performance, to avoid the expiration of any applicable limitations period, to preserve a superior position with respect to other creditors, or to avoid irreparable injury.
How these were found
Access limits: spglobal.com itself is blocked for automated fetching, so the consumer-facing Terms of Use page (www.spglobal.com/en/termsofuse) and the main Privacy Policy (www.spglobal.com/en/privacy/privacypolicy-English) could not be read directly. Findings rest on two primary sources actually read in full: (1) the S&P Global Market Intelligence 'Terms of Use' PDF (Effective Date: July 16, 2018) hosted on S&P's own CDN; (2) S&P's own standard 'Master Services Agreement + Services Attachments + Pricing Schedule' (Agreement Generation Date: May 3, 2024), published via the UK Government G-Cloud 14 Digital Marketplace. Note the G-Cloud PDF is watermarked 'DRAFT COPY – not for execution' — it is S&P's template MSA text, and real client deals are negotiated off it, so the clauses describe paper terms rather than every executed contract. Privacy-policy wording beyond the MSA could not be verified against the current official page; a search snippet from a marketing-vendor mirror (password-gated on fetch) appears to quote S&P's privacy notice but was not independently readable, so consumer-data findings come mainly from the MSA and CapIQ Terms. Researched October 1, 2026.
These notes come from the original draft and are not independent verification.