Terms and Conditions suck.
If you follow the lawyers direction, the user will have to read every bloody line of the document, agree to it AND be forced to print it out and sign it as well. I wish I was kidding… But I’ve had conversations with a legal team where they expressed exactly this recommendation.
If the Ts & Cs are part of an application process and is presented in the wrong way it can stop the user dead in their tracks, and lead to them “giving up” and you lose a potential “sale.”
Like I said, they suck. So what’s a designer to do?
Hide the useless information, and highlight the important information. Have the full Ts & Cs available “on demand” (via a lightbox) but highlight the key bullets on the screen near the agreement checkbox. Example of key bullets: if its a photo sharing service, who owns the photos (it should always be the user). If it’s mostly useless, then just have a link to the Ts & Cs and the checkbox.
And yes, nobody reads them. Those few people in the world who do… Well, they’re just weird. Or lawyers. Or both.