Searches for Netflix Terms and Conditions soar 596 per cent after ‘Black Mirror’ release

Charlie Brooker

Searches for Netflix’s Terms and Conditions have soared sixfold over the weekend, following the premiere of the new Black Mirror series.

It comes after the first episode of the sixth season of Black Mirror – released on June 16 called ‘Joan is Awful’. It features a dramatic situation that resulted from a common everyday mistake: accepting the terms and conditions of an online service without reading them.

CasinoAlpha.ie discovered that searches for “Netflix terms and conditions” soared by 596 per cent on Google after just three days of the new season arrived on the streaming platform.

Tudor Turiceanu, CEO of CasinoAlpha.ie said on the findings: “Without triggering any spoiler alerts, it is clear that despite today’s awareness of data privacy concerns being higher than ever, it is so easy to forget that terms and conditions are, in fact, a contract. Companies know that realistically, very few will sit there and read the T&Cs carefully, though clearly, as the data we analysed shows, many became more aware of them following Black Mirror‘s first episode.

“This may be a good time for policy makers to intervene and make it easier for users to understand what they are agreeing to because telling people to just read the small print rarely works.”

Salma Hayek in ‘Black Mirror’. Credit: Netflix

The sixth season of Black Mirror arrived on Netflix earlier this month to mostly positive reviews, with critics describing the new episodes as “thrilling” and “scathing and sadistic as ever”.

The six new episodes were previously described as the “most unpredictable, unclassifiable and unexpected yet”.

In other Black Mirror news, Salma Hayek was worried role in the series would get her “in trouble”. The actor appears in the aforementioned episode titled ‘Joan Is Awful’.

“There are so many moments that shocked me in the script,” she told Radio Times. “There is one huge one that I had to come to terms with, and made me ask myself, ‘Do I really want to do this? Am I going to get in trouble?’”

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