End User Agreement warning
p2pnet.net News:- “Overbroad EULAs are one of the greatest threats to consumer rights in the high tech industry,” says Dangerous Terms – A User’s Guide to EULAs, a new EFF white paper.
“Few people realize that simply visiting a website or downloading a software update may constitute ‘agreeing’ to a EULA that permits third parties to monitor your communications or allows a vendor to dictate what you can or cannot do with the product you’ve bought,” says its author, EFF policy analyst Annalee Newitz.
“Clicking the ‘I Agree’ button may mean clicking away your privacy, freedom of speech, or other rights.”
EULAs – end user license agreements – are supposed to bind consumers to terms dictated by vendors, but, “onsumers don’t negotiate them, don’t sign them, and in many cases can’t even read them until after they’ve bought the product, taken it home, and opened up the package,” says Newitz.
The paper comes at a key juncture in the case of Davidson (commonly known as Blizzard) v Internet Gateway that tests if EULAs can override public protections under federal copyright law such as the fair use doctrine.
“Tomorrow, lawyers for Blizzard will file an appeal brief arguing that three open source programmers violated Blizzard Entertainment’s EULA by creating bnetd, a free game server whose creation was a fair use under copyright law,” says the EFF, co-counsel to the defendants in the case, which is currently on appeal in the Eighth Circuit.
The foundation says it’s also devising legal strategies to challenge EULAs, adding:
“This white paper is intended to educate the public, but also to serve as a call to arms for consumers who want to fight unfair terms in EULAs. EFF invites people who have been harmed by EULA terms, or who have been threatened with lawsuits for violating terms in EULAs, to contact EFF with their stories.”
You can download a Dangerous Terms .pdf here.
If you think you’ve been harmed by a EULA, email the EFF at eulaharm@eff.org
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February 18th, 2005 at 7:19 pm
The best way to keep from being harmed by End User Licencing agreements is to use strictly Free (GPL) Software. KDE’s decision to release KDE to Windows users may do Free Softwre some good. Firefox is showing people its superiority over Internet Exploder. The GPL does not exploit consumers like the EULA. Hopefully, people will begin to question why they would need any EULA and make the switch. Please visit http://www.freelink.cx for more information on Linux and free software.
February 18th, 2005 at 7:20 pm
Not exactly new news,simple things 2 remember, never register your product, never give away real information, never buy software if at all possible always download it for free, always use firewall and block apps outgoing call homes and never bother reading end user license’s!!
February 18th, 2005 at 7:30 pm
Any software that requires me to “agree” to an EULA does not get installed on a computer that connects to the Internet, period. I use one extra product that forces me to click the accept button, and that piece of software is required for me to get paid for my work. Everything else I use is Free Software.
February 18th, 2005 at 7:59 pm
This was something that bothered me for some time. My concern has always been that, even in this digital aged, a hand-written (or uniqui electronic) signature is the only sure sign that someone is bound by any agreement. Esspecially when signing away privacy!!!
Click thru agreements should never be considered usefull proof in a court of law unless supported by the above stated signature.
February 19th, 2005 at 5:56 am
KDE on windows???
This is major news…. and I don’t see it on their website (www.kde.org).
Please explain!
February 21st, 2005 at 10:31 am
Personally I’ll use the ‘I sneezed and click twice at one point during installation’ – So I never saw the EULA and never knew it existed.
Only problem is the packages that make you scroll down to the end and check a box. Still can always say during sneezing I hit so many keys on keyboard I must have hit the right combination to by pass it.
Hope I never have to try this however!