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."

Comments

::blink::

[AstynaxX]

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]

Re:::blink::

[John Hasler]

"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."

Not true. Incomprehensibility of the forms is no excuse for not paying your taxes, but incomprehensible contracts are in severe danger of being ruled unenforceable.

The real problem...

[bluprint]

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".

Re:The real problem...

[Arandir]

It's not the lawyers fault as much as it's the fault of, as the interviewer put it, the "litigious culture".

No, I think it's the lawyers. There is a litgious culture, but that's the result of the lawyers. I read a book once called "What They Don't Teach You At Harvard Law School", or something like that. It's basic premise was that lawyers are trained from day one to look for problems, but they are never taught how to look for solutions. So we have ended up with a legal culture that is geared to search for problems, but with no idea how to solve them except to sue.

Yesterday Sybase submitted a license for approval to the OSI. It was essentially the Apple APSL, with an additional clause requiring distributions to use click-wrap or use-wrap to indicate a manifestation of assent. (use-wrap: "by using this software, which you already have the legal right to use, you agree to...") Such a clause is completely unnecessary for Open Source Software, and I hope it doesn't get approved. I can envision only two rationales for this clause: 1) Sybase is petty, and doesn't want people using their free-beer software unless they bow before the all holy legal department; or 2) they think the clause is necessary simply because every other proprietary company has it.

Their stated rationale for the clause was that the Sprecht versus Netscape decision disallowed binding contractual obligations unless the recipient of the aforementioned unilateral imposition of terms was assented to by the user. Duh! Sybase just doesn't get it.

No surprise...

[Deagol]

The directions for a bottle of shampoo or a box of Hamburger Helper are more complex than a 1040! I mean really, is this all that surprising? Most tax forms seem pretty straight-forward to me.

Now, if the tax code (the laws themselves) were easier to understand than a standard EULA, then this would be news. :)

Re:No surprise...

[TrumpetPower!]

The directions for a bottle of shampoo...are more complex than a 1040!

``Lather. Rinse. Repeat.'' Are you sure you've got the right bottle?

b&

A solution to the problem

[The_Shadows]

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.

From the article ...

[ProfMoriarty]

It seems ad-supported software preys on people's urge to try to get something for nothing. Do these adware companies appeal to our lowest urges?
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?

Question for any (pseudo)lawyers out there...

[RobinH]

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?

Re:Question for any (pseudo)lawyers out there...

[swb]

People can understand that.

I envision a time where legalisms will be so complicated and pervasive that we will spend half our time working to pay lawyers(1).

I also envision a time where people become so sick of the gross abuse of the legal system that a new standard applies: any law or contract not held to be understandable by the generally educated person will not be enforceable.

Yes, this will have some serious consequences -- many highly abstract and detailed social and economic structures which rely on highly detailed and abstract legalese will no longer work. The good news is that these will be replaced by simpler, less complicated social and economic structures. As as society we will be more efficient because we won't need to keep searching for ever-more-complicated structures to achieve efficiencies to account for the drag of the legal dead weight we carry.

(1) The reason we will only work half the time for lawyers is that the other half of our time will be spent working for health care. The purpose of the lawyers being to get the health care we've worked for to actually mean something.

Re:Question for any (pseudo)lawyers out there...

[bnenning]

No, perhaps not, but consider this: if you don't consider it binding, you have a cdrom and packaging, but no right to copy the data thereon.

I don't know how this meme got started, but it's entirely false. See 17 USC 117; it is not a violation of copyright to make a copy of software if doing so is an "essential step" in using it.

Someone doesn't live in MA

[Otter]

Harder than a 1040, yeah, but nothing like Massachusetts state tax forms. Last year, when I took some capital gains losses, it required a worksheet that had (I am not making this up!) Steps A-Z, AA-ZZ, AAA, ZZZ and AAAA-OOOO. Around R, I realized that it was a recursive algorithm to offset losses against gains, solved it as best I could and hoped for the best.

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... ;-)

This is gonna get /.'d quick but...

[Britissippi]

Check out the handy dandy Eula Generator.

Fun for all the family!

Re:They may be...

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

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."

Re:There is nothing new there...

[tchuladdiass]

Actually, I've got a solution for EULAs. I go ahead and click Accept, then I fire off an email to the support line along the lines of "By receiving this email, you accept my modifications to your EULA as follows...", and follow it with my own terms. I follow it up with "By not re-writing your EULA, you affirm that the above exceptions are valid".

Should be about as valid as their license...

Re:Why unreadable

[markmoss]

There are three separate issues in tax forms. One is that most of the public school teachers teaching math don't really understand it, so most Americans are pretty much innumerate. If your mind freezes up every time you see more than three addition or subtraction operations, there isn't much chance of you understanding any tax form no matter how simple.

Second, if you are numerate, the IRS forms are generally as clear as they can make it while following the laws that a bunch of damned lawyers in Congress wrote. But those laws are generally written to obscure the point rather than to clarify it -- your congressman doesn't want to make it too clear that he designed a particular deduction so that only one corporation in the whole US can use it...

Third, there are a lot of people who do understand the intent of the forms and tax laws, but want to know how much cheating they can get away with. The exact limits of things like legitimate business travel expenses are hard to define, but many people are way over any reasonable line. You know -- fly to Hawaii, have a five minute business discussion, stay a week, deduct it all as business expenses. If your question is, can I get busted for that -- I sure hope so!

Neither stupidity nor trust but pointlessness

[mlc]

From the article:

Take off your readability hat and put on your psychology hat. What are people thinking when they click "I agree"? Are they illiterate? Naive? Stupid?
They're not stupid. They're trusting. It's actually quite similar behavior to sick people....

I disagree with that analysis. Sure, maybe some people are really stupid, and a few are still naïve enough to believe that corporations really are interested in writing licenses that benefit both sides. 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.

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:

The University reserves the right to enter an assigned space for reasons of health, safety, or emergency; for the purpose of insuring compliance with these Terms and Conditions of Residence; for inventory; and for making necessary repairs.

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.