Terms Of Services Research Articles

Terms of entanglement: a posthumanist reading of Terms of Service

ABSTRACT Contemporary connected things entail ongoing relations between producers, end users, and other actors characterized by ongoing updates and production of data about and through use. These relations are currently governed by Terms of Service (ToS) and related policy documents, which are known to be mostly ignored beyond the required interaction of ticking a box to indicate consent. This seems to be a symptom of failure to design for effectively mediating ongoing relations among multiple stakeholders involving multiple forms of value generation. In this paper, we use ToS as an entrance point to explore design practices for democratic data governance. Drawing on posthuman perspectives, we make three posthuman design moves exploring entanglements, decentering, and co-performance in relation to Terms of Service. Through these explorations we begin to sketch a space for design to engage with democratic data governance through a practice of what we call revealing design that is aimed at meaningfully making visible these complex networked relations in actionable ways. This approach is meant to open alternative possible trajectories that could be explored for design to enable genuine democratic data governance.

The Boundaries of Business and Pleasure: How Personal, Social, and Legal Factors Influence Webcam Models’ Boundaries

ABSTRACT Webcam models live-stream erotic shows for viewers around the world. Unlike traditional pornography, they interact directly with clients during their performances, and clients may play a role in shaping the direction of the performance. Models can decide what kind of shows to offer or what acts to perform. This article is based on interviews with 23 North American webcammers and explores how these models shape their boundaries based on different personal, social, and legal factors. Legal consciousness is used as a sensitizing concept to help contextualize webcam models’ experiences and interactions with the law and the terms of service (ToS) on webcam platforms. The findings show the co-occurring forces shaping webcam models’ boundaries such as stigma, social norms, moral subjectivities, personal preferences and desires, sexual pleasure, and the law and ToS. This shows how webcam models are both controlled by formal and informal law but also have the agency to act within it – and sometimes beyond it.

Privacy Concerns Related to Data Sharing for European Diabetes Devices.

Individuals with diabetes rely on medical equipment (eg, continuous glucose monitoring (CGM), hybrid closed-loop systems) and mobile applications to manage their condition, providing valuable data to health care providers. Data sharing from this equipment is regulated via Terms of Service (ToS) and Privacy Policy documents. The introduction of the Medical Devices Regulation (MDR) and In Vitro Diagnostic Medical Devices Regulation (IVDR) in the European Union has established updated rules for medical devices, including software. This study examines how data sharing is regulated by the ToS and Privacy Policy documents of approved diabetes medical equipment and associated software. It focuses on the equipment approved by the Norwegian Regional Health Authorities. A document analysis was conducted on the ToS and Privacy Policy documents of diabetes medical equipment and software applications approved in Norway. The analysis identified 11 medical equipment and 12 software applications used for diabetes data transfer and analysis in Norway. Only 3 medical equipment (OmniPod Dash, Accu-Chek Insight, and Accu-Chek Solo) were registered in the European Database on Medical Devices (EUDAMED) database, whereas none of their respective software applications were registered. Compliance with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) security requirements varied, with some software relying on adequacy decisions (8/12), whereas others did not (4/12). The study highlights the dominance of non-European Economic Area (EEA) companies in medical device technology development. It also identifies the lack of registration for medical equipment and software in the EUDAMED database, which is currently not mandatory. These findings underscore the need for further attention to ensure regulatory compliance and improve data-sharing practices in the context of diabetes management.

Countering online hate speech: How does human rights due diligence impact terms of service?

The Internet is a global forum largely governed by private actors driven by profit concerns, often disregarding the human rights of historically marginalised communities. Increased attention is being paid to the corporate human rights due diligence (HRDD) responsibilities applicable to online platforms countering illegal online content, such as hate speech. At the European Union (EU) level, cross-sector initiatives regulate the rights of marginalised groups and establish HRDD responsibilities for online platforms to expeditiously identify, prevent, mitigate, remedy and remove online hate speech. These initiatives include the Digital Services Act, the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, the proposed Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence, the proposed Artificial Intelligence Act and the Code of conduct on countering illegal hate speech online. Nevertheless, the HRDD framework applicable to online hate speech has focused mostly on the platforms’ responsibilities throughout the course of their operations - guidance regarding HRDD requirements concerning the regulation of hate speech in the platforms’ Terms of Service (ToS) is missing. This paper employs a conceptualisation of criminal hate speech as explained in the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers’ Recommendation CM/Rec(2022)16, Paragraph 11, to develop specific HRDD responsibilities. We argue that online platforms should, as part of emerging preventive HRDD responsibilities within Europe, respect the rights of historically oppressed communities by aligning their ToS with the conceptualisation of criminal hate speech in European human rights standards.

The impact of the Digital Content Directive on online platforms’ Terms of Service

Abstract The Digital Content Directive 2019/770 (the DCD), aiming to foster the Digital Single Market and improve consumer protection, became applicable on 1 January 2022. This article presents the results of the study of 100 Terms of Service (ToS) of online platforms, conducted to evaluate the Directive’s impact. By combining black letter analysis with qualitative and quantitative empirical research, the contribution sheds new light on the Directive’s assumptions, critically assesses its logic, and makes regulatory suggestions for European lawmakers. Our central finding is that a significant number of the studied contracts (28 per cent) do not contain descriptions of the digital content offered. Many of those that do, keep the descriptions extremely vague. Hence, the central institution of the Directive—conformity with the contract—might be less valuable than the lawmakers have assumed. Even though the DCD introduces the concept of ‘objective’ conformity, we show how, in the digital environment, it might lower legal certainty, defeating one of the purposes of the Directive. Moreover, we also demonstrate how the analysed ToS often fail to meet other requirements, such as the right to retrieve one’s content or the protection from unilateral content deletion. This begs the question about the regulatory approach, the efficacy of the chosen enforcement scheme and, more generally, the enforcement schemes used throughout the EU’s private law. To remedy these problems, we suggest engaging in more empirical research when designing future measures to protect consumers online and considering supplementing the existing enforcement schemes with administrative oversight like the one in the Digital Services Act.

Selection, Initiation, Continuation, andEfficacy ofReversible Contraception Among Enlisted U.S. Service Women inTheir First Term ofService From 2012 to 2020.

Pregnancy is the second most common cause of limited duty days among active duty service members in the U.S. Military. Pregnancy accounts for 10% of all days on restricted duty, despite impacting a minority of active duty service members. One out of five service women will experience an unintended pregnancy every year despite the availability of no-cost contraception and reproductive healthcare. Young, single, junior enlisted service women experience the highest rate of unintentional pregnancy. Previous studies have demonstrated service branch-based variability in selection, initiation, and continuation of specific contraceptive methods related to service branch culture and access to contraception during basic training. It is unclear if these differences impact overall contraception use or fertility rates among junior enlisted service women in their first term of enlistment. This study examines rates of contraceptive selection, initiation, continuation, and efficacy among junior enlisted service women in their first 4-year enlistment period, and the service branch specific variability in these outcomes. This study is a secondary analysis of Military Healthcare Data Repository records from women who began basic training between 2012 and 2020 and remained on active duty for at least 12 months. We used Kaplan-Meier analyses to examine the effect of age and military branch on contraceptive continuation and efficacy. We used binomial regression for interval censored data, to assess the association of service branch with rates of contraceptive initiation, contraception use, births, and childbirth-related duty restrictions. We identified 147,594 women who began basic training between 2012 and 2020. The mean age of these women at the beginning of basic training was 20.4 ± 3.1 years. Women in the marines and navy had higher contraceptive initiation rates than women in the army or air force. Among women initiating a contraceptive pill, patch, or ring (short-acting reversible contraception), 58.3% were still using some form of hormonal contraception 3 months later. Among women initiating depot-medroxyprogesterone (DMPA), 38.8% were still using any form of hormonal contraception 14 weeks later. Long-acting reversible contraceptive methods, such as intrauterine or subdermal contraceptives, had higher continuation rates and less service-based variability in continuation and failure rates than short-acting reversible contraception or depot-medroxyprogesterone. The proportion of days on any form of prescription contraception during the first 4 years on active duty varied from 23.3% in the army to 38.6% in the navy. The birth rate varied from 34.8 births/1,000 woman-years in the air force up to 62.7 births/1,000 woman-years in the army. Compared with women in the air force, women in the army experienced 2,191 additional days of postpartum leave and 13,908 days on deployment restrictions per 1,000 woman-years. Service branch specific variability in contraceptive use is associated with differences in days of pregnancy-related duty restrictions during first 4 years on active duty among junior enlisted females. Robust implementation of best practices in contraceptive care across the military health system to improve contraceptive initiation and continuation appears to offer an opportunity to improve military readiness and promote the health and well-being of active duty service women, particularly in the army.

Terms-we-serve-with: Five dimensions for anticipating and repairing algorithmic harm

Power and information asymmetries between people and digital technology companies are further legitimized through contractual agreements that fail to provide meaningful consent and contestability. In particular, the Terms-of-Service (ToS) agreement, is a contract of adhesion where companies effectively set the terms and conditions of the contract. Whereas, ToS reinforce existing structural inequalities, we seek to enable an intersectional accountability mechanism grounded in the practice of algorithmic reparation. Building on existing critiques of ToS in the context of algorithmic systems, we return to the roots of contract theory by recentering notions of agency and mutual assent. We evolve a multipronged intervention we frame as the Terms-we-Serve-with (TwSw) social, computational, and legal framework. The TwSw is a new social imaginary centered on: (1) co-constitution of user agreements, through participatory mechanisms; (2) addressing friction, leveraging the fields of design justice and critical design in the production and resolution of conflict; (3) enabling refusal mechanisms, reflecting the need for a sufficient level of human oversight and agency including opting out; (4) complaint and algorithmic harms reporting, through a feminist studies lens and open-sourced computational tools; and (5) disclosure-centered mediation, to disclose, acknowledge, and take responsibility for harm, drawing on the field of medical law. We further inform our analysis through an exploratory design workshop with a South African gender-based violence reporting AI startup. We derive practical strategies for communities, technologists, and policy-makers to leverage a relational approach to algorithmic reparation and propose there's a need for a radical restructuring of the “take-it-or-leave-it” ToS agreement.

Terms of Service Fairness Analyser using Machine Learning

Abstract: Terms of Service (ToS) are fundamental factors in the creation of physical as well as online legally relevant relationships. Very often, they disregard the consumer protection law. In this perspective, a relevant issue is that public agencies in charge of control concretely lack the resources needed to effectively fight against such unlawful practices. We propose a definition of ToS unfairness and a novel machine learning-based approach to classify clauses in ToS, represented by using sentence embedding, into both categories and fairness classes. We use Naïve Bayes Classifier to achieve the desired categorization and result. Terms of Service (ToS) are fundamental factors in the creation of physical as well as online legally relevant relationships. They not only define mutual rights and obligations but also inform users about contract key issues that, in online settings, span from liability limitations to data management and processing conditions. Despite their crucial role, however, ToS are often neglected by users that frequently accept without even reading what they agree upon, representing a critical issue when there exist potentially unfair clauses. To enhance users’ awareness and uphold legal safeguards, we first propose a definition of ToS unfairness based on a novel unfairness measure computed counting the unfair clauses contained in a ToS, and therefore, weighted according to their direct impact on the customers concrete interests.

A novel stochastic model for flexible unit commitment of off-grid microgrids

This work proposes a novel two stage stochastic optimization approach for the Energy Management System (EMS) of MicroGrids (MG). It combines the scenario-based uncertainty characterization with the use of piecewise affine correction rules for the recourse decision. These rules are used by the EMS to set the commitment status of the programmable generators and to correct the storage management as a function of the realization of the uncertainty, measured in real-time. The novel stochastic model is integrated in a hierarchical EMS, based on two control layers: the first one employs the proposed stochastic approach to determine the daily strategic scheduling of the MG, and the second layer optimizes the real-time dispatch.. The proposed EMS is applied to a real-world case study of a rural MG. Results indicate that the proposed EMS outperforms state-of-the-art optimization approaches in terms ofservice reliability (99.8%) and fuel efficiency. Moreover, rolling horizon simulations of the proposed stochastic model showed 100% reliability, and 30% of fuel cost savings with respects to state-of-the-art methods. The novel EMS is then deployed on a laboratory-scale microgrid (Multi-Goods MicroGrid Laboratory, MG2lab), demonstrating secure and economic operations. A comparative analysis is made with respect to deterministic and standard stochastic two-stage approaches; the proposed solution outperforms the other models during real operations, with savings of fuel cost up to almost 10%.

Ethical Framework of Social Media Based on Text Analysis of Terms of Service of Six Major Platforms

In the present digital world, people rely extensively on social media for networking and socializing. As a consequence, they face numerous ethical challenges which make it necessary to constantly reflect on new media ethics emerging from social media. The terms of service (ToS) of social media provide the opportunities for big tech companies’ guidelines to design the ecology and the ethical environment of social media. The existing studies conducted in this domain emphasize on specific ethical issues pertaining to ToS such as privacy, freedom of speech, and copyright protection. But all of these studies lack the exploration of its general ethical framework. Considering the theoretical framework of the Potter Box Model of Reasoning, Schwartz’s value scale, and Christians and Ess’ ethical principles, this paper examines the ToS of social media run by six major platforms across the globe. The result reveals 15 values, which are summarized into three pairs of ethical principles: egoism and altruism, monism and pluralism, and utilitarianism and deontology. The paper further analyzes the hidden conflicts and reveals the emergence of “relational” ethical principle.

An empirical analysis of consumer-unfriendly E-commerce terms of service agreements: Implications for customer satisfaction and business survival

• We use text mining to identify harmful e-commerce terms of service (ToS) clauses. • We present a prototype tool that scans ToS and assigns severity rankings. • We identify the impact of customer unfriendly clauses on business performance. • Businesses with higher market share prefer less consumer-unfriendly ToS terms. • The effect of market share on customer satisfaction is partially mediated by ToS. E-business user agreements are seldom read but almost always accepted by users. We present an in-depth analysis of e-user agreement issues using textual data on Terms of Service (ToS) agreements from more than 250 e-commerce companies. Our text mining analysis identifies several terms in ToS that pose significant risks to consumers. We propose a prototype text mining process that scans ToS agreements on behalf of consumers and assigns an overall severity score based on the potential threats. We supplement this with Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) for topic modeling in our corpus of ToS documents, to identify user-unfriendly clauses from ToS documents. Next, our empirical analysis reveals three novel findings. First, the presence of hostile clauses in ToS negatively impacts customer satisfaction but is associated with higher survival of firms. Second, firms with higher market share prefer less consumer-unfriendly terms in their ToS. Third, the impact of market share on firm performance is partially mediated by ToS severity. Overall, this study analyzes the linkage between market share, ToS severity, and firm performance, and provides significant insights on ToS policies to IS scholars, legal experts, and firms.

The surprising power of a click requirement: How click requirements and warnings affect users' willingness to disclose personal information.

What kinds of information and alerts might cause internet users to be more cautious about what they reveal online? We used a 25-item survey to determine whether the strength of Terms of Service (TOS) warnings and the inclusion of a click requirement affect people’s willingness to admit to engaging in inappropriate behaviors. A racially and ethnically diverse group of 1,500 people participated in the study; 98.3% were from the US and India and the remainder from 18 other countries. Participants were randomly assigned to five different groups in which warnings and click requirements varied. In the control condition, no warning was provided. In the four experimental groups, two factors were varied in a 2 × 2 factorial design: strength of warning and click requirement. We found that strong warnings were more effective than weak warnings in decreasing personal disclosures and that click requirements added to the deterrent power of both strong and weak warnings. We also found that a commonly used TOS warning has no impact on disclosures. Participants in the control group provided 32.8% more information than participants in the two click requirement groups combined and 24.3% more information than participants in the four experimental groups combined. The pattern according to which people dropped out of the five different groups sheds further light on the surprising power of the click requirement, as well as on the importance of tracking attrition in online studies.

“Yakety yak: Don’t talk back”: An autopsy of anonymity gone awry

This article compares the socio-legal factors and challenges contributing to the failure of the deceased anonymous, hyperlocal platform, Yik Yak, with a living anonymous, hyperlocal platform, Jodel. By analysing each platform’s Terms of Service (ToS) statements alongside their guidelines and values, the article traces how anonymous, hyperlocal applications both diverge from and mirror communication law in fashioning their approaches to content moderation and responses to the dark side of communication. The article concludes that in contrast with Yik Yak, which attempted to rely on its ToS and limited community monitoring system to curb cyberbullying and harassment, the case of Jodel—and by extension, the German approach to regulating hate speech and bullying—suggests that surviving hyperlocal, anonymous platforms of U.S. origin should not solely hide behind Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). Instead, they should aim to combine (1) robust ToS statements with (2) specific community values or guidelines that are fortified by (3) a comprehensive monitoring system in order to curb abusive behaviour on their platforms.

A machine learning-based approach to identify unlawful practices in online terms of service: analysis, implementation and evaluation

Terms of Service (ToS) are fundamental factors in the creation of physical as well as online legally relevant relationships. They not only define mutual rights and obligations but also inform users about contract key issues that, in online settings, span from liability limitations to data management and processing conditions. Despite their crucial role, however, ToS are often neglected by users that frequently accept without even reading what they agree upon, representing a critical issue when there exist potentially unfair clauses. To enhance users’ awareness and uphold legal safeguards, we first propose a definition of ToS unfairness based on a novel unfairness measure computed counting the unfair clauses contained in a ToS, and therefore, weighted according to their direct impact on the customers concrete interests. Secondly, we introduce a novel machine learning-based approach to classify ToS clauses, represented by using sentence embedding, in different categories classes and fairness levels. Results of a test involving well-known machine learning models show that Support Vector Machine is able to classify clauses into categories with a F1-score of 86% outperforming state-of-the-art methods, while Random Forest is able to classify clauses into fairness levels with a F1-score of 81%. With the final goal of making terms of service more readable and understandable, we embedded this approach into ToSware, a prototype of a Google Chrome extension. An evaluation study was performed to measure ToSware effectiveness, efficiency, and the overall users’ satisfaction when interacting with it.

Aiding and Abetting: Third-Party Tracking and (In)secure Connections in Public Libraries

ABSTRACT Patron privacy, as articulated in the American Library Association (ALA) Code of Ethics, is a longstanding concern for librarians. In online environments, the possibility of tracking by third parties, usage of HTTPS/TLS to provide secure connections, and easy disclosure of a site’s privacy policies all have implications for user privacy. This paper presents new empirical evidence about these issues and discusses their ethical implications. Data about the incidence of third-party tracking, usage of HTTPS by default, and easy discoverability of a privacy policy or terms of service (TOS) were collected for public libraries across Canada and the United States. The sample consisted of 178 public libraries; members of the Canadian Urban Libraries Council and Urban Libraries Council. Several common commercial databases (e.g. OverDrive) were also examined using the same criteria. Results show that only 12% of libraries were devoid of third-party tracking, with Google Analytics being the most common third-party tracker. While libraries may support HTTPS under certain circumstances, it was found that a majority of libraries serve neither their websites nor their online catalogs (OPACs) HTTPS by default. Regarding disclosure of possible tracking, it was found that 58% of libraries did not link to a TOS or privacy policy from their homepage. Together with previous research on the usage of privacy-enhancing tools in public libraries, these results suggest that public libraries are accessories to third-party tracking on a large scale. Implications of this fact in light of library professional ethics are discussed.

Co-constitutive complexityUnpacking Google’s privacy policy and terms of service post-GDPR

Abstract Google is the gateway to the Internet for billions of people. However, to use Google’s multiple platforms and services, users must accept Google’s terms. With the advent of the EU’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), Google made significant changes to these terms. In this article, we scrutinise the intertextual relations between Google’s privacy policies and terms of service (ToS) and the GDPR – and the discursive co-constitutive complexity within and between these frameworks. We argue that the material and communicative articulation of Google’s privacy policies and ToS should be understood as deliberative data politics delimiting users’ agency, consent, and privacy. Furthermore, we emphasise complexity and the demands of reducing complexity as two opposing dynamics. While the GDPR required Google to make its terms and policies clearer and more understandable, ironically, in the process of accommodating GDPR’s demand of increased transparency, the discursive complexity of Google’s policies has in fact increased.

How Internet Contracts Impact Research: Content Analysis of Terms of Service on Consumer Product Websites.

BackgroundCompanies use brand websites as a promotional tool to engage consumers on the web, which can increase product use. Given that some products are harmful to the health of consumers, it is important for marketing associated with these products to be subject to public health surveillance. However, terms of service (TOS) governing the use of brand website content may impede such important research.ObjectiveThe aim of this study is to explore the TOS for brand websites with public health significance to assess possible legal and ethical challenges for conducting research on consumer product websites.MethodsUsing Statista, we purposefully constructed a sample of 15 leading American tobacco, alcohol, psychiatric pharmaceutical, fast-food, and gun brands that have associated websites. We developed and implemented a structured coding system for the TOS on these websites and coded for the presence versus absence of different types of restriction that might impact the ability to conduct research.ResultsAll TOS stated that by accessing the website, users agreed to abide by the TOS (15/15, 100%). A total of 11 out of 15 (73%) websites had age restrictions in their TOS. All alcohol brand websites (5/15, 33%) required users to enter their age or date of birth before viewing website content. Both websites for tobacco brands (2/15, 13%) further required that users register and verify their age and identity to access any website content and agree that they use tobacco products. Only one website (1/15, 7%) allowed users to display, download, copy, distribute, and translate the website content as long as it was for personal and not commercial use. A total of 33% (5/15) of TOS unconditionally prohibited or put substantial restrictions on all of these activities and/or failed to specify if they were allowed or prohibited. Moreover, 87% (13/15) of TOS indicated that website access could be restricted at any time. A total of 73% (11/15) of websites specified that violating TOS could result in deleting user content from the website, revoking access by having the user’s Internet Protocol address blocked, terminating log-in credentials, or enforcing legal action resulting in civil or criminal penalties.ConclusionsTOS create complications for public health surveillance related to e-marketing on brand websites. Recent court opinions have reduced the risk of federal criminal charges for violating TOS on public websites, but this risk remains unclear for private websites. The public health community needs to establish standards to guide and protect researchers from the possibility of legal repercussions related to such efforts.

No Robots, Spiders, or Scrapers: Legal and Ethical Regulation of Data Collection Methods in Social Media Terms of Service

Researchers from many different disciplines rely on social media data as a resource. Whereas some platforms explicitly allow data collection, even facilitating it through an API, others explicitly forbid automated or manual collection processes. A current topic of debate within the social computing research community involves the ethical (or even legal) implications of collecting data in ways that violate Terms of Service (TOS). Using a sample of TOS from over one hundred social media sites from around the world, we analyze TOS language and content in order to better understand the landscape of prohibitions on this practice. Our findings show that though these provisions are very common, they are also ambiguous, inconsistent, and lack context. By considering our analysis of the nature of these provisions alongside legal and ethical analysis, we propose that ethical decision-making for data collection should extend beyond TOS and consider contextual factors of the data source and research.

The Private Governance of Identity on the Silk Road

Long before the creation of blockchain platforms, the rise of personal computing, and Internet connectivity brought with it a digital, online dimension of the material world, leading to the socio-technical construct known as “digital identity.” After the online discussion boards and emailing lists of the early 1990s, individuals started socializing via the Internet more predominantly using social networks. One specific type of platform links this online socializing and transacting to blockchain-based spaces: dark web marketplaces. Identified as second-generation cryptocommunities, dark web marketplaces deployed cryptography for the use of pseudonymous identity, for communication, but also currency. This paper explores two questions in this fascinating space: what was the role of identity on the Silk Road, and what governance lessons can be drawn from this illustration for the purpose of applying them to more recent cybercommunities such as Ethereum? The paper is structured as follows. The first part describes the Silk Road and sketches its essential characteristics. The second part looks at how individuals could become platform users on the Silk Road, by analyzing the contractual relationship between the Silk Road and an individual user based on the rights and obligations enshrined in the Silk Road terms of service (ToS). The third part critically reflects on arbitrariness as the main pitfall arising out of the private regulatory framework created by the Silk Road, and contributes to existing narratives surrounding the regulatory nature of code by proposing a code-as-procedure perspective for analyzing this regulatory framework. Part four concludes.

Transitivity-ergativity perspectives on causation in legal texts: A contrastive study of Arabic and English website terms of service

The description of grammatical systems of languages constitutes one of the major objectives of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The present study investigates the system of causation in English and Arabic in a contrastive perspective, and aims to show that in addition to typological differences, the lexicogrammatical realisation of causation may be activated by contextual factors. To this end, the instances of causation in three parallel corpora of website Terms of Service (TOS) are explored from transitivity and ergativity perspectives, argued to be complementary. The investigation of the semantics and lexicogrammar of causation shows that lexical, morphological and analytic resources have varying frequencies in the two sub-corpora, reflecting general probabilities in the systems of the two languages. This divergence between the two languages has led to devising separate systems for English and Arabic, in addition to common systems, modifying thus the original system based on the English language (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014). The study also shows that the impact of contextual factors is cross-linguistic, confirming, thus, the higher position of the context stratum. These findings pave the way for more contrastive register-based studies extending to other registers and aiming to enrich SFL theoretical constructs and tools of grammatical descriptions.