Wait a second! I have to surrender my intellectual property?

"In exchange for the ODP's consideration, I grant [. . . ]

[ . . . ]To grant Netscape Communications Corporation a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, publish, copy, edit, modify, or create derivative works from my submission."

Note that by quoting portions of this agreement, I do mean to say that I accept these terms.

Does this mean I have to surrender the intellectual property in my website? Or am I mistaken here and this is not what the above clause means?

Short answer - you're mistaken

What that means, more or less, is that what you put on that form - Title, description, URL - we can take and make something of it. Whatever we want to make of it. Our title or yours, our description or yours, the URL you submitted or one that we find that leads to the same location - and you agree to let us do that.

I see, sorry for flying off the handle. I don't want to be rude or disrespectful, but I am used to being lied to by companies, so if someone who is not directly with the ODP will reassure me on this one I would really appreciate it.

Again, my apologies for flipping out

We have listed more than 4.5 million sites and we haven't stolen their intellectual property.

What in the world would make you think we are lying in wait for yours?

Good grief!

You have a point. I don't have experience submitting this, and I don't know your history, but I've overreacted. I am sure everybody and their mother would not be trying to submit websites to you folks if you were selling their intellectual property, so I will go ahead and submit.

If you're really worried, you should talk to a lawyer.

Micro$oft's EULA has a lot to answer for...