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EULAs More Difficult to Read than Tax Forms
krugdm writes: "Mark Hochhauser has an article over at CNet where he talks about the readability of the legalese used in EULAs and what motivates people to just 'Click to Accept' without reading a word of the agreement. He actually did a readability study where he determined that most EULAs are more difficult to read than a 1040."
Isn't the new wording on the 1040 as follows?
1: How much did you make last year? _____
Instructions: Send amount listed on line 1 to IRS.
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
OK, this is going to be said a -lot-, but hasn't this topic popped up before around here? [On another note, does it -really- surprise anyone? After all, there is -far- less motivation for the average software company to make EULAs readable than there is for the IRS to make its tax forms readable]
-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"
What they want you to know, they flood you with thought, TV ads, radio ads, banner ads, and big popup windows... what the DONT want you to know they hide inside the shell of legal Jargon that makes up the License Agreement.
- Tempestdata
Do I get extra points if I link to the Slashdot article that talked about this before?
I couldn't tell if you were experimenting with poor-man's cryogenics or looking for the orange sherbet.
Makes you wonder why the IRS makes its forms generally unreadable...
Then again, it's probably because the tax code is so complicated.
This guy really misses the point. I don't have a problem with this theory if they're writing for other lawyers. But if they're writing for kids online, it makes no sense to have a 3,000-word policy written at a college-reading level.
The reality is, this stuff is written for other lawyers. Why? Because when there is a disagreement, lawyers and judges (higher up lawyers) will be making arguments/decisions pertaining to the confilict.
A EULA that says "Do you promise not to give this game to all your friends?" just won't do.
It's not the lawyers fault as much as it's the fault of, as the interviewer put it, the "litigious culture".
A modern day witchhunt.
Now, if the tax code (the laws themselves) were easier to understand than a standard EULA, then this would be news. :)
Method of processing duck feet
Don't even bother with the EULAs. Get a young person ( < 18 ) to install all your software for you. You don't agree to the EULA, and they can't be legally bound. Everybody wins!
The_Shadows[LTH], out.
The 1040 in question was the 1040 EZ, which you can see here: http://www.cedar.buffalo.edu/NABR/1040EZx2.gif. This form has 17 fields to fill out (not counting name and address and a couple other gimmies). An EULA tries to cover the gamut of legal possibilities. This little analysis is ignorant. An EULA is always going to be somewhat complex. The key to a usable EULA (which the issuer doesn't want, btw) is using layman's terms.
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
The IRS wants you to understand the 1040 and to fill it out correctly. Most companies don't want or don't expect you to read the EULA, and it'll stay like that as long as we let them get away with writing outrageous EULAs which carry the force of law and require all sorts of insane concessions on the part of the user.
I remember once installing a program with a EULA that scrolled at a set speed. It's probably the only EULA that I've read in its entirety, but it was dead boring. I almost just decided to hit cancel and be not install.
But its not just EULAs, I don't think most people read many of the contracts they sign.
Yes. Anything that says "free," people want. But eventually people will realize there's not really such thing as "free" software. It comes with a price--in this case the annoyance of advertising, or possibly privacy violations.
Emphasis mine ...
What's this guys address so I can send him a distro of Linux?
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
Does clicking "OK" to an EULA actually mean anything legally? I can't see how it can be binding, because there's no record of a signature (not even a digital one). There's no recorded date, or identity of who clicked the mouse.
... and if it's not legally binding, then why should I bother to read it?
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
.. and it's getting worse. I recently logged onto the American Airlines site. They asked me to agree to a usage agreement which, in printed form, is 5 pages long...of pretty small type.
A lot of it has to do with what use I'm permitted to make of the site.. like not using "mileage aggregation services" and the like. But life is too short, and I've just abandoned my use of the site. But I hope this isn't a sign of worse to come.
Actually, the article says "the Internal Revenue Service's 1040 EZ form was simpler to read"
The 1040 EZ isn't exactly college-level reading material. It's one fscking page for Chrissake!
Anyhoo, back to the article --- I think the key to EULAs is, as Hochhauser said, trust. Of course no one reads those things. You assume that it's something along the lines of, "Don't install on more than one machine at a time. If something goes wrong, don't expect anything from us." and normally that's what you get.
When Kazaa or other companies violate that trust, word gets around and the market enforces it eventually. People here have to realize that however much they obsess over licenses and privacy, most users including sophisticated users think current practices are perfectly adequate.
What I get a kick out of with these Kazaa/Gator stories is how everyone suddenly forgets to pretend they're full-time Linux users... ;-)
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
When is someone going to take these things before a Judge? There is no way that pressing a button, or tearing shrink wrap can hold the same legal standing as a signature before witnesses.
There is absolutely no way to prove who pressed the button is there? So how could this possibly be a legal "agreement?"
Well... the people who want to control an XP machine with VNC certainly care...
"Derp de derp."
Fun for all the family!
Meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow...
That's the 1040EZ. The regular 1040 form is now: 1: How much did you make last year? _____ Instructions: Send twice the amount listed on line 1 to IRS.
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
... to make a piece of software, like a music sharing network, for example with a EULA that states 'anybody who works the RIAA must pay a mandatory license fee of 1,000,000,000,000,000 US dollars (or pesos) for starting this software.'
I think if the RIAA were to target the legality of EULA's, it might draw their attention away from trying to take away our fair use rights.
"Derp de derp."
I'm sure there are a couple of good lawyers/law students who could draft legislation detailing the requirements of a clear summary.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
...when you create an industry out of nothing, you need to justify its existence, right?
Think of it. Everything around us is an illusion. We don't need EULAs, we don't need tax forms, we don't need so many of the inventions around us, we don't need insurance, we don't even really need currency, if you think about it. When people talk about the costs of such and such, how much does it really cost? How much does it really HAVE to cost?
The world's been spinning for untold millions of years, and it's been doing it thus far without EULAs (et al). If everyone around the world had a collective moment of brain synergy, we could do away with so many things that a small, elite few would like us to think we need because in so needing it we must also need IP laws, lawyers to write them up, politicians to pass them, etc. And in order to keep needing them, we need to make them more complicated, so that as they evolve there is always new stuff to have to learn about them, and more and more reason to justify the expense of these maintainers of unnecessary pyramids.
Think of it this way. Up here in Canada, we cannot simplify our tax laws, despite the fact that nobody sane likes our tax forms. If we simplified them, we would horrendously cripple our tax industry and infrastructure, which bobs along based ENTIRELY UPON the fact that the tax laws are complicated, and as such necessitates the cost of accountants and tax lawyers and politicians etc. We have an entire industry that supports these people, and it would collapse if we had a central computer take care of it all for us, which is entirely within the realm of comprehension. As a result, there's this nebulous morphing tax industry which everyone BELIEVES is necessary. You Americans, with your massively entrenched legal system, are feeling the same phenomenon from a different standpoint.
The world is bloat. Sorry if that sounds a little nihilistic.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Funny you would mention this. I brought this issue to the attention of our legal dept and some of our core IT people who contacted Microsoft, and here's the response we got from the evil empire...
"Yes- Windows XP EULA does not prohibit end users from using third-party remote access applications. We are working on evaluating the Product Use rights to determine if further clarification on this issue is necessary on this issue. Our goal is to enable a customer to conduct a single interactive user session at a time from a remote device, whether the customer chooses to use the Microsoft Remote Desktop, Remote Access and NetMeeting technologies or third party remote access software."
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
If companies had to pay me to read their EULA, I guarantee they would shorten it up and make it readable.
Punch the monkey! Punch the monkey!
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
the article answers all theese burning questions about what the EULA's say very well
;)
I know if you go to terms of service, it pretty much says, "You can't sue us for anything." That's pretty much what they say in 8,000 words.
there ya go, next time you cant figure out what it's trying to say, just assume it says the above
Sorry, there really is such a thing as free software. I run most of my business on it. Most of it is even free as in beer. But the important thing is that it's also free as in freedom.
The reason I can trust it, is because I can examine the source myself. I do for some of the software I use. I contribute bug fixes back for the software I know how to fix, and is important for me to have fix. The web of trust in the open source community gives me assurance that others are doing the same for software I don't personally check.
I don't suffer 'the annoyance of advertising, or possibly privacy violations.' All thanks to truly FREE software.
So they really only want one session at a time? I'm not saying I support this, but it makes more sense than 'MS hates VNC'.
I think what they're trying to do is get people to either buy the 25-license version of Windows XP, or have everybody run XP so they can talk to each other.
"Derp de derp."
I read this article before. They are comparing EULA's to form 1040-EZ.
For anybody who hasn't done US Taxes before, 1040-EZ is written to be SIMPLE. You have to fill out a different form if you want to do anything other than put in how much you earned and get a number back for how much you owe.
I filled out one of these in elementary school as part of a tax class. No offense, but if they are going to write an article saying that EULA's are hard to understand, then they should have picked a tax form that uses words bigger than 2 syllables.
However, the reason for contracts like this is all the lawsuits over the years that consumers and other people that have brought that set picyune precedents like "they didn't say that the contract was severable, so I assumed that since one part was obviously invalid the whole thing was invalid".
These lawsuits are how we end up with contracts and EULA's like this.
Whether this is the lawyers' fault or the consumers, or the politically motivated consumer protection groups, or the stupid juries that agree with this kind of crap, I couldn't tell you. Probably a bit of each.
The only way to avoid stuff like this is to stop being a litigious society.
Good luck...
Given the increasing globalization of the internet, it just hit me that all the EULAs and privacy policies I've seen are written in English. (Granted, I don't do much surfing on non-English pages.) This seems such an obvious loophole, but what if the EULA were written in a different language?
I'd assume there's a requirement that these agreements must be readable by the user... but some I've seen could as well have been written in a different language.
I wonder how long I'll need to wait for somebody to come out with an agreement written in one of these languages: Hacker, Bork! Bork! Bork!, Elmer Fudd, or Klingon ;^)
I can see how Hochhauser makes his money as a consultant. Someone presents him with a document and he charges $300/hr for calculating this index and that index. He'll put together a nice folder and a printed statement laying out the different scores - all looking very impressive. His report will end with a recommendation that the authors use shorter words and shorter sentences. And he probably has a PR department ensuring that he gets mentioned in articles on CNET, TV and radio.
And that statement about there being no "free software" is a blatant lie too!
-- SIGFPE
To an extent, EULAs will probably always be long and complicated. A EULA has to make sure it closes every loophole since lawyers are trained to exploit contracts. Realizing this, it would be great if EULAs gave a preamble or summary. For example, the preamble of the GPL provides a great summary and explanation in layman's terms.
Speaking of repeating ...
The real problem is that if you install, for instance, Windows and Office, and patch them to current "safe" levels you will be asked to agree to about 20 different EULAs -- all slightly different. You have the original install, the patches (which can not be installed at the same time as any other patch), the upgrade of IE, etc. etc.
Now add in installing all the basic tools; zip, adobe reader, netscape (:-), java ide, etc.
By the time your machine is installed and usable you've "read and agreed" to about 100 different licenses, sometimes dozens from a single company.
Reading and understanding 100 contracts of this nature is a full days job for a trained lawyer! It's an impossible task for the average consumer/programmer.
It's time for clear laws that specify software liabilities (or lack thereof!) and prevent this kind of EULA overload that essentially forces you to either agree to everything or don't use the technology. I think we can all agree that not using the technology is not really a viable option for the bulk of people in today's society.
EULAs are just the start: every Microsoft patch and fix, on both my workstation AND my server, requires acceptance of yet another "license agreement" (and sometimes a single patch requires two acceptances of two different things). Ditto for my anti-virus software. Add a couple dozen different software applications (Quicken, Photoshop, PC Anywhere, Roxio Easy CD Creator, Eudora, Netscape, etc. etc.), each updated once or twice a year. Then add all the terms and conditions and privacy policies on each of the web sites I visit (hundreds? thousands?). What about the policies and terms for each email newsletter subscription? Don't forget online banking, online payment for my electric bill, separate online payment for my cable modem bill, and separate online payment systems for several other things. Then there's eBay, and its separate online billing (BillPoint) system, each with its own complex terms & policies. And PayPal.
Offline: And that's just the online crap. Every other credit-card bill contains a multi-panel brochure with tiny 6-point type, likewise my bank statements.
Don't forget the fine print warranties for every product we buy, plus the terms of any service contracts we buy for the equipment we buy, and the return policies at every store where we shop, and the agreement for our supermarket-club-cards.
And don't even get me started on insurance policies: my health insurance company has sent me 3 complete policy revisions this year, 50+ pages each, plus every month new qualifiers, restrictions, and special terms, and then they reject valid claims and approve fraudulent claims anyway! Then there's car insurance, homeowners, life insurance, each of which are revised at least once a year. And who ever reads the fine-print waivers when you visit a doctor or hospital?
God forbid you are a member of anything, even a homeowner's association, because then you have even more agreements and bylaws and policies. Or you are foolish enough to have kids, the paperwork multiplies again.
And that doesn't cover everything, by far.
Has anyone ever tried adding up the word counts for all these documents?
I doubt that it is physically possible to actually read all this stuff.
-- http://www.MarkWelch.com/ Pleasanton California
I mean, presenting 20-40 lengthy paragraphs in tiny little windows, writing half of it in all-caps which is well known to be harder to read. That's not really an effort to inform the prospective user. Touchy stuff is buried deep in that texts, like with the recent spyware that disables adaware. It's in there to cover their asses, but obviously it is expected that these click-through-agreements are ignored. It would be interesting to see some of these "agreements" tested in court.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
You're right. Innumeracy is actually a pretty large problem that is generally unknown by the public. One hears of lots of "literacy" programs that help to teach people to read. But I've never heard of a single program to help those who are deficient in math.
As for the travel example you gave - my employer (Lawrence Livermore Nat'l Lab) has made it a no-no to take personal travel while on foreign business travel. I think they were having people go to England to "just" attend a conference, tacking on some vacation, and having the Lab pay for most of the hotel and all of the airfare.
they don't mean anything!
Click Yes and ignore. Anything else merely encourages this EULA foolishness. After all, even if they were legally binding, who's going to enforce them?
(I suppose I need to mention be careful what you install on your system for all those kazaa users out there.)
The IRS has actually spent time and money trying to make the tax code (which is harder to read than the average EULA) easy to follow with the various forms they've created.
The average software shop doesn't care if their EULA is readable, and increasingly more companies like it that way. Providing a simplified explanation is not trivial, and has various legal landmines to navigate.
So any comparison is not very reasonable - they are intended for completely different purposes, and one will necessarily be more difficult to understand than the other.
-Adam
Often, the EULA that comes with the software is out of date anyway: companies reserve the right to change terms and conditions at any point, so what you read and agree to may already be out of date. Do you have the time and interest to check whether there is a newer version? Most people don't.
For most web sites, you are a fool if you give them any information you care about. For the few web sites where you need to give a correct address and a credit card number, reputation probably counts more than EULA, but there is one case where you might want to check about any unexpected charges and marketing tie-ins.
Now, can anybody hold you to the EULA? Not really: unless you try to do something with the software that is somehow visible to other people, nobody knows that you are using the software, let alone that you have agreed to the EULA, so many provisions are meaningless. If you plan on reverse engineering the software, building applications with it, or linking with it, you might have to worry about it, but then, you might be better off not living in the US. And the law already protects you against highly one-sided contracts (Bill Gates may write into his EULA that you agree to be be his towel boy for a year, but he'd have a hard time enforcing that).
Most of these problems and issues with EULAs are unrelated to their readability; even if they were highly readable, there still wouldn't be much point in reading them.
is because people don't percieve them as legally enforceable. They see it as some stupid BS that they have to click on to use the product they *already* purchased.
EULA's are still largely untested in the courts.
If it was a paper they were asked to sign.. that's another story.
If this were like the much accalimed "Day" as in "Back in the Day" things wouldn't be like this. EULAs would be simple. Usually things like, "If this destroys your computer, we'll buy you a new one." Or, "If we destroy your house trying to re-roof it, we'll pay for repairs." Now, its like, "If this destroys your computer, you must buy a new copy, and you cannot sue us, and you are entitled to no reimbursement." and "If we destroy your house, you have to pay us full price, and we are not responsible."
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
All it means that the 1040 is still two pages long.
Of course, every line on the 1040 requires either a 10-line worksheet that's buried in the 200-page tax guide, or the filling out of another two-page form with its own lines, each of those which require worksheets, etc. etc. etc.
The 1040's easy. A 20-page 1040 would also be easy. The current mess - a 2-page 1040, and pages of extra work to figure out which subset of 2-page forms apply to your particular situation - is what makes the people of this country spend 10% of their tax burden on CPAs.
Just think, Washington could abolish the Internal Revenue Code, create something new and simple, jack up taxes by 5%, and the people would still have 5% more money in their pockets.
(The legions of tax lawyers and accountants would all be out of work however. Since Congress is run by lawyers... gee, what a surprise...)
Legalese is everywhere around us. You see it when you install a piece of software, you see it when you pay your taxes. It's the world that is pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth...
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
The producers are using this in an attempt to shirk their responsabilities.
Nobody reads these pieces of ass-wad because there is no negotiation and no alternative. Basically, they are meaningless, unenforcable and totally useless.
We all know that there is only ONE recourse and that is to burn Redmond to cinders and lynch Gates' minions. When that becomes an inevitable alternative, we'll do it. Until then, we'll put up with the crap we get because a) its not our software, its not important and we don't give a shit b) we don't have any choice.
You could place clauses in there that would indicate that you wish to sell the user's better looking daughters into sexual slavery and render the rest of the family for the fat content and nobody would bat an eye because nobody would notice.
But I'd have to ask for a front row seat to watch when the lawyers come to your door to cart away your daughters and melt the rest for lard. Can you say "bullets flying?"
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Take a real-world contract I just signed, for next year's housing at my school. Now, the way it works here is that you go into a room and pick the housing you want, then take a card over to a couple people with computers who will print out a contract for you to sign, and hand you a 6-page booklet of terms and conditions. Now, I happen to have looked through that booklet a while ago, so I knew there was a clause (clause X) I don't like:
So, I asked the guy if I could amend the booklet to strike that clause. Of course, I couldn't. So my only alternative would be to not sign the contract and then try and find an apartment in New York for $700/month.What did I gain from reading the contract? Absolutely nothing, just knowing that I'm screwed. I'm screwed whether I know it or not, so why shouldn't I just save my time and not read the contract? It was a nice day---I'd rather be outside than wading through a 6-page booklet of legal mumbo jumbo that I can't change.
See http://www.osdn.com/terms.shtml to see what I mean by "verbose." It might not be a 1040-GvMny, but it isn't "don't do anything stupid" either.
Why is so much attention given to EULA/*PL's, and not website TOS's?
My Blog: http://nic.dreamhost.com/
One of the best arguments I've seen against the enforceability of EULAs it the simple scenario: if you find the EULA unacceptable - something that you can only do after paying for the software - and attempt to return it for a refund, can you?
With almost no exceptions, the answer is NO. The author says it's an issue for the seller, the seller says that they don't refund software after it's been opened.
This means that you're coerced to agree to the EULA. If you click 'no,' you're out your money without appeal. This violates the basic premise of contract law (an exchange of items of value - in this case you aren't just getting a poor deal, you're getting *nothing* in exchange for hard currency) and has a strong coercive nature.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
"But the reason that I don't read EULAs (or most other things I sign) is that there's no point in wasting my time. I can't negotiate with the company if there's a term in the EULA I don't like. Either I accept the license, or I don't get the product or service they're offering."
Actually a better reason is you either click the button or you can't use the software you just paid for. The fact is you already purchased the right to use the software when you picked it up from Best Buy.
They can't add on additional caveats after you already purchased the software.
So the reason people click "I Agree" is because the EULA doesn't mean jack.. it's non enforcable since it takes place after-the-sale.
Actually, non-commercial distribution of GPL or LGPL software requires merely a link to the source code at a public repository; it's commercial distribution that mandates redistribution of the source code.
A solution to the problem with music today
The 1040 is a personal income tax form, dumbass. Corporations don't have personal income, they just create personal income for others, like for instance, you.
This being another exception to the concept of corporations as legal "people"... Since otherwise they certainly would have "personal income", even if it were zero or negative.
Absolutely. How, precisely, should sentences like the one below, which is an exception to the totally nonsensical rules on "collapsible corporations," be translated into a simple form? The I.R.S. may do a bad job, but most of the blame has to lie with the Congress that refuses to repeal dreck like the following, the first sentence of sec. 341(e)(1):
For purposes of subsection (a)(1), a corporation shall not be considered to be a collapsible corporation with respect to any sale or exchange of stock of the corporation by a shareholder, if, at the time of such sale or exchange, the sum of (A) the net unrealized appreciation in subsection (e) assets of the corporation (as defined in paragraph (5)(A)), plus (B) if the shareholder owns more than 5 percent in value of the outstanding stock of the corporation the net unrealized appreciation in assets of the corporation (other than assets described in subparagraph (A)) which would be subsection (e) assets under clauses (i) and (iii) of paragraph (5)(A) if the shareholder owned more than 20 percent in value of such stock, plus (C) if the shareholder owns more than 20 percent in value of the outstanding stock of the corporation and owns, or at any time during the preceding 3-year period owned, more than 20 percent in value of the outstanding stock of any other corporation more than 70 percent in value of the assets of which are, or were at any time during which such shareholder owned during such 3-year period more than 20 percent in value of the outstanding stock, assets similar or related in service or use to assets comprising more than 70 percent in value of the assets of the corporation, the net unrealized appreciation in assets of the corporation (other than assets described in subparagraph (A)) which would be subsection (e) assets under clauses (i) and (iii) of paragraph (5)(A) if the determination whether the property, in the hands of such shareholder, would be property gain from the sale or exchange of which would under any provision of this chapter be considered in whole or in part as ordinary income, were made (i) by treating any sale or exchange by such shareholder of stock in such other corporation within the preceding 3-year period (but only if at the time of such sale or exchange the shareholder owned more than 20 percent in value of the outstanding stock in such other corporation) as a sale or exchange by such shareholder of his proportionate share of the assets of such other corporation, and (ii) by treating any liquidating sale or exchange of property by such other corporation within such 3-year period (but only if at the time of such sale or exchange the shareholder owned more than 20 percent in value of the outstanding stock in such other corporation) as a sale or exchange by such shareholder of his proportionate share of the property sold or exchanged, does not exceed an amount equal to 15 percent of the net worth of the corporation.
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