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Miscellaneous

by Mike Masnick

Tue, Nov 29th 2005 3:19am





Fight Back Against Bad EULAs

from the let-everyone-know dept

We all know that very few people actually read end user license agreements (EULAs), and even when they do, it seems like some companies don't live by them. However, part of the problem is that companies often try to hide both the important and ridiculous terms in so much legalese that it's not even worth bothering. That's why most people probably don't realize they're supposed to stop listening to Sony BMG music if they go bankrupt. However, it looks like a new service is trying to help deal with this issue, leveraging the power of the community. Spyware Confidential is pointing to a new service called EULAscan that asks people to review the various EULAs they come across, so that people can see what others have said. It's been up for a little while, apparently, but still could use more people reviewing EULAs to make it really useful.

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  1.  
    identicon
    kingmanor, Nov 29th, 2005 @ 3:29am

    Need Lawyers

    This is almost a good idea. I hate bad EULAs as much as the next guy. And I do a product review for the community on epinions.com or amazon.com every so often. But I am completely unqualified to comment intelligently on a License Agreement. If lawyers could interpret the legalese in these documents (like Creative Commons does) than it would be great. A good pro-bono idea perhaps?

     

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  2.  
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    Anonymous Coward, Nov 29th, 2005 @ 5:23am

    Re: Need Lawyers

    And if "no one" really reads the EULA in the first place, what says that persons will go to a website to research the said EULA as well? Unless ofcourse these are the same people who also visit websites to kill time throughout the day... and with that said, wouldn't looking at a mindless flash animation, a captured video of something outrageous or silly pictures (or cracking a good book) be a more enjoyable waste of time than wading through EULAs? ...unless ofcourse you have already seen everything on the internet. twice.

     

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  3.  
    identicon
    Mark, Nov 29th, 2005 @ 6:37am

    EULA

    Facing a pack of corporate lawyers with a EULA is like facing a gang-banger with a gun ... just hand over the money and keep your mouth shut and no one gets hurt.

     

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