The Out of Control EULA
March 4, 2006
Well the Puli Brothers went and did it, they bought a new Windows-based computer, and now they are struggling not to have buyers remorse.
One of the big concerns are all the End User License Agreements (EULAs) that the Brothers have to agree to before they can begin using their new computer and its software. Now the Brothers have included lots of disclaimers in the Fine Print for this site, but now they have to add another:
The Puli Brothers need to point out that they are not licensed to practice law in the state of Washington—or any other state or province for that matter—so this merely represents their opinion as consumers.
As the following illustration, taken with a digital camera as it displays too early in the setup of the computer to take a screen shot, and the Brothers were unable to find a way to print it or copy it to another program like Notepad and then print it out, shows Microsoft appears to think it is quite reasonable that the Brothers press the down arrow 58 times to read all the screens of legal gooblety-gook, before the can run the software.
Ridiculous EULAs—The Puli Brothers
Let's face it, even with their advanced Obedience School training, the Brothers, and most other consumers regardless of their eduction have little or no hope of understanding what they can and cannot do with the software.
Suppose the Brothers decide that they don’t like the terms, do you think they would be able to take the computer back to the store they purchased it at and get a full refund? Would they have to pay the restocking fee?
And even if they like the computer, in a couple of years can they sell it on eBay with the software, or is the software non-transferable? The Brothers are pretty sure one of the screens mentioned something like that but they aren’t really sure.
Isn’t it about time consumers got to see these agreements in a timely manner, like before they leave the store with the software? Isn’t it about time consumers were able to read these agreements in chucks greater than three or four lines at a time and without having to press the down arrow 58 times? Shouldn’t there be a printed version of the agreement in the box—after all they manage to get their adds and disks of trial software into the box. And isn’t it about time that the agreements clearly and consisely said: ‘Here is what you can do with the software…’ and ‘Here is what you cannot do with the software…’
And the biggest point, as long as the Brothers are dreaming, could the agreements say that the agreement cannot be changed for as long as you own the software unless both the software manufacturer and the buyer specifically agree to the change—today the user will likely be presented with a second EULA, with new terms if they ever update the software to fix a bug. So essentually, at some time during the life of the software the buyer will have to either agree (under duress) to the new EULA, or live with buggy software. Consumers should never have to choose between loosing rights to use the software, and living with a mistake or bug in the software.
Oh well, the Brothers would like to rant on about this, but they just opened another program, and have several more screens of unintelligable legal terms they have to read before they just give up, press ‘Agree’ and hope they never violate the terms of the agreement and have the software police swoop in and say the words they hate to hear: ‘Bad Dog!’