The Web's Longest Disclaimer

An anonymous reader writes "American Airlines are nominated for the 'longest website enduser agreement' category with customers requiring to accept this mammoth 'I accept' dialog before using their site. The tale of the tape includes: 181 paragraphs; 3482 words; and 22411 characters. However even mentioning this is probably in violation of the text."

Comments

Wow!

[RinkSpringer]

...and even a printable version, in case my toilet runs out of paper ... now *that* is service!

Re:Wow!

[efagerho]

I wonder if they can deliver enough of it for my needs? Wonder when they start to consider my toilet paper consumption as a denial of service attack... as that was clearly not permitted according to the EULA.

Re:Wow!

[fccf]

funny you mentioned this..
once upon a time a friend of mine was in a desprite need of good floppies.. and he went to the site of some PIC making company and submited five times the request form for free technical info.. in a 2 days he got 5 sets of 2 good SONY floppies - one with the PDFs and one with AcrobatReader 2.something.. now, 5x2 = 10 good disks free.. what a deal, huh :)

Hide the Real Stuff

[e8johan]

This is probably a way of hiding 'offensive' paragraphs. I'd say that most end-user agreements are too long. A solution to this would be a legal phrasing and a readable phrasing (i.e. a shorter, readable form with the main points).

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[The_Shadows]

Right, but then, of course, who's to say what the important parts are? The company likely wants certain things hidden. They will certainly tell the lawyers what is "important" and what is "not."

I mean, the company may consider it important to let you know that you're forbidden to sell their content. However, they may consider it an unimportant footnote that by entering you grant them power of attorney.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's up to us to get organized and publish the main points of the various EULAs/disclaimers out there. That'd be a useful website.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Patik]

A solution to this would be a legal phrasing and a readable phrasing (i.e. a shorter, readable form with the main points).

Then you'll run into all sorts of legal problems. Who decides what is necessary to tell the user, and what he needs to know? A user may read the paraphrased EULA, then perform an action with the software not specifically outlined in that paraphrased form, while the action is clearly described as illegal in the full legalese EULA version.

Even worse, malicious companies can abuse paraphrasing to hide important information. For example, the shortened EULA for Kazaa (etc) can tell the user what can be done with the software (share and download "files"), but conveniently leave out the legal issues ("files" means only non-copyrighted material). You'll either end up with a bunch of innocent people in trouble with RIAA, or a mess of lawsuits between Kazaa and RIAA because they trick users into clicking "I agree" to an over-simplified statement without explaining the laws in full to the user.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[EraseEraseMe]

Hiding the meat and potatoes of a legal argument behind a layer of fluff and doublespeak is incredibly common. In a "CYA" society, you've got to expect that they're going to say everything and anything they can to protect themselves from any sort of liability. What they don't realize however, is that these agreements probably wouldn't stand up under any light.

For example, one clause "By using the Site, you represent and warrant that you are 18 years of age or older and possess the legal right and ability to enter into this Agreement and to use the Site in accordance with all of the terms and conditions of this Agreement" could cause more than a number of problems. Say someone under the age of 18 purchases a ticket from them online...now what? are they legally obligated to actually provide a service to this person, even though said customer is technically not allowed to use the site?

The rest of the agreement seems to be pretty standard web-related agreements. Agreeing not to upload/download files (1) to a national or resident of or into any country the U.S. has embargoed, including without limitation, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria, or Yugoslavia; (2) to anyone on the U.S. Treasury Department's Specially Designated Nationals list, or (3) to anyone on the U.S. Commerce Department's Table of Denial Orders.

And then at the end of it all, there's the biggest CYA: You may not: S. Engage in any other conduct that is, or that American Airlines deems to be, in conflict with this Agreement.

Moreover, then there's the liability agreement for the agreement at the end:

American Airlines may alter, change or improve the Content at any time and without notice.

Then their privacy policy regarding information they take from you. Although this is a bit of a mind-puzzler:

American Airlines will not treat as confidential any communications you send to us by electronic mail or otherwise. American Airlines has no obligation to refrain from publishing, reproducing, or otherwise using your communications in any way and for any purpose.

First company I've seen doing that...Wonder why.

And then, the final straw: You agree that Texas law governs this Agreement's interpretation and/or any dispute arising from your access to, dealings with, or use of the Site, without regard to conflicts of law principles.

Ouch.

The last paragraph, however, is the greatest laugh-inducer:

If any provision of this Agreement is found to be invalid or unenforceable, then the invalid or unenforceable provision will be stricken from this Agreement without affecting the validity or enforceability of any other provision.

So, they could essentially put "You must name your first child after American Airlines", have it be struck down as idiotic, but the rest of the agreement still stands...nice :)

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Eivind]

Certainly. But in such an "agreement" all the phrasing is 100% in their favour. The entire thing only says they have all rigths, you have none whatsoever.

Let's look at a few examples:

Engage in any other conduct that is, or that American Airlines deems to be, in conflict with this Agreement.

Now this one is the killer. Notice the OR in there. This one simply says that any conduct which they dislike is in violation of the agreement, whether such conduct is prohibited by the agreement itself or not. In effect this single statement renders the rest of the text meaningless.

American Airlines specifically denies you permission to hyperlink or provide references to the Site, unless you are allowed to do so under a separate written agreement with American Airlines.

Nonsense ! By putting up a website they implicitly allow linking to it. If they don't want people to link to it, they can take it down. "Provide reference" is even more ridiculous. Does this mean it's forbidden for me to tell anyone where to find the site ? If not, what does it mean ?

American Airlines will not treat as confidential any communications you send to us by electronic mail or otherwise. American Airlines has no obligation to refrain from publishing, reproducing, or otherwise using your communications in any way and for any purpose. Again nonsense. They assert that simply by accessing their website, I have to consent to their "agreement". What stops me from sending them "communications" with a similar assertment in it ?

You understand that American Airlines owns any and all information or material that you post on a Forum. You agree that you waive all of the rights you have to any information or material that you post on a Forum. American Airlines has the right to do whatever it wishes with that information or material, including but not limited to deleting or editing for any reason any posting by you.

So they own everything, yet in the next paragraph they say that whatever you post to the site is fully your responsibility and they have no obligations whatsoever. Now, which will it be ? Is it *their* material or *my* material ?

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless American Airlines and its affiliates from and against any and all claims, demands, proceedings, suits and actions, including any related liabilities, obligations, losses, damages, deficiencies, penalties, taxes, levies, fines, judgments, settlements, expenses (including legal and accountants' fees and disbursements) and costs (collectively, "Claims"), based on, arising out of or resulting from your use of the Site,

This says that (among other things) if you buy a ticket on the site, and they make a profit, leading to the need to pay taxes, you need to pay those taxes for them. Really. Read it again !

It goes on, but I think further commenting is needless, the "agreement" is clearly bunk, and I'd like to believe it'd never be upheld in any court in the world. Possible exception for the USA, I recommend people unlucky enough to live there to seek asylum elsewhere.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[tulare]

Possible exception for the USA, I recommend people unlucky enough to live there to seek asylum elsewhere.

True nough. But I have to point out the fact that neither Norway nor any other country I can think of will grant asylum status to an applicant based upon the applicant's national leadership being run by a knuckle-dragging inbred moron who is puppetted by a bunch of two-bit millinealist madmen bent upon unleashing some kind of ungodly crusade upon all who don't follow their personal dogma. Unless, of course, the country in question is cited for human rights violations all over the place by organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the UN. Unless, of course, the country in question has incarcerated or otherwise placed under special legal authority one out of evrery four men in a given minority group.

Surely, I could continue, but the fact is, what passes for acceptable in the US would be grounds for asylum coming from any other country in the world. Anyone see the problem with this picture?

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Jon Peterson]

I'm not so sure in this case. I read the whole thing. There's nothing particularly bad in there. Bear in mind this is not the disclaimer for the general website, but for the AAdvantage club thingy. There's a 'no linking' clause, but in the circum stances that seems fine - it's annoying to have links into the middle of what is basically a web based application.

The rest is just tediously explicit - "Don't say libelous things on forums" "Don't use our logo" "We are not liable for damages resulting from typos on this site" etc. etc. ad nauseam.

It's sad that this stuff has to take the place of common sense, but in the end it's a two way street. If you didn't have idiots claiming they own the 'rights' to their bulleting board postings, you wouldn't have these discaimers pointing out in legalese that you forfeit those 'rights'.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Jon Peterson]

You said:

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless American Airlines and its affiliates from and against any and all claims, demands, proceedings, suits and actions, including any related liabilities, obligations, losses, damages, deficiencies, penalties, taxes, levies, fines, judgments, settlements, expenses (including legal and accountants' fees and disbursements) and costs (collectively, "Claims"), based on, arising out of or resulting from your use of the Site,


This says that (among other things) if you buy a ticket on the site, and they make a profit, leading to the need to pay taxes, you need to pay those taxes for them. Really. Read it again !

I say

AARRGGH!! No it freaking doesn't. This is one of the most standard clauses in any contract anywhere, and it says that if _I_ incur penalties, taxes, etc as a result of using AA's service, then AA are not responsible.

I'm not a lawyer, but my job is to provide technical advice on legal contracts that are software and technology related, so I get used to this kind of language. Please try to be accurate...

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[jesterzog]

What they don't realize however, is that these agreements probably wouldn't stand up under any light.

I find it hard to believe that this is why disclaimers are written in this way. They are lawyers who write these things, after all. Of course they know what is and isn't enforcable.

Personally I think it's far more likely that they hope that other people won't realise that they wouldn't stand up under any light. As long as 99% of people don't realise what parts of disclaimers (and EULA's) are enforcable, 99% of people will arrange their use of a product or service in exactly the way the vendor wants them to.

Even if people suspect that it's over the top, it's not worth most people's time, money or effort to find out in an extended legal battle.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[ptbrown]

And then at the end of it all, there's the biggest CYA: You may not: S. Engage in any other conduct that is, or that American Airlines deems to be, in conflict with this Agreement.

I'm imagining an onUnload handler that checks if the site you're going to is some other airline and pops up a warning saying you're in violation of the EULA.

American Airlines will not treat as confidential any communications you send to us by electronic mail or otherwise. American Airlines has no obligation to refrain from publishing, reproducing, or otherwise using your communications in any way and for any purpose.

They probably outsource their email and crm services. This is the problem with panaceas like P3P: the limitations are overly-broad so you either have to be completely paranoid and not be able to do anything online, or relax the standards and allow for the possibility of someone abusing your trust. The only way to prevent people from using your personal data without your permission is to make it outright illegal. Too bad the people who want to do such things have a lot of friends in congress.

You agree that Texas law governs this Agreement's interpretation and/or any dispute arising from your access to, dealings with, or use of the Site, without regard to conflicts of law principles.

There's UCITA at work. Wasn't there a big fuss about a hundred and fifty years ago about one state's laws being enforced in another? That and something about those who forget the lessons of history...

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Repton]

If I cut out some of the synonyms from the clause (which seems like it should be OK, as I'm only making it say less, not more), I get:

You agree to [...] indemnify [...] American Airlines [...] from and against any and all [...] taxes [...] resulting from your use of the Site,

It still seems to me that the earlier poster's interpretation is consistent with the clause: If I use the site (to buy a ticket), and taxes arise from this use of the site (as they would) then I agree to indemnify (compensate) American Airlines for those taxes.

If that's not what it means, then it is not very clear ...

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[cicadia]

I read the whole thing. There's nothing particularly bad in there.

Are you sure? You'd better read it again.

It's still okay? Well, you'd better read it again tomorrow, just to be sure.

From the agreement:

American Airlines reserves the right to change this Agreement and to make changes to any of the products or programs described in the Site at any time without notice or liability. Any such revisions are prospectively binding on you and therefore you should periodically visit this page when you use the Site to review the then current Agreement that binds you.

After reading this far, I came to the conclusion that there's no point reading any further, since they can change the agreement at any time, and you agree to let them.

They could conceivably have changed the entire text of the agreement between the time you get the original text and the time you post your acceptance. (This is especially likely given the amount of time it would take to read and understand the entire agreement).

I don't know about your experience with these things, but this looks like about the most offensive language I've ever seen in a set of terms and conditions like this.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[mpe]

The last paragraph, however, is the greatest laugh-inducer:
If any provision of this Agreement is found to be invalid or unenforceable, then the invalid or unenforceable provision will be stricken from this Agreement without affecting the validity or enforceability of any other provision.

It's a common CYA clause, without it any void clause can void an entire contract.
In many cases no-one actually writes these things from scratch, they simply glue pre-existing pieces of boiler plate together, with alterations to make them fit.
There's probably a fair bit of mixing in clauses they know full well are void, on the basis that no-one is going to call their bluff on them.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[e_n_d_o]

If any provision of this Agreement is found to be invalid or unenforceable, then the invalid or unenforceable provision will be stricken from this Agreement without affecting the validity or enforceability of any other provision.

IANAL, but this is pretty much your standard severability clause. Any contract worth a damn will have one.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[linuxbaby]

So, they could essentially put "You must name your first child after American Airlines".

Ooof! Don't I know it! Yeah I missed that part of the IUMA EULA once.

But now my son Iuma is 2 years old and doesn't seem to mind it so much.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[blah-Hipo]

that's not malicious--that is AWESOME. the point of kazaa is to download movies, software, and mp3s. the point is NOT legal file sharing. kazaa writes the software for dowloading illegal material (thank you Kazaa). so anything confusing about the applications of the EULA due to what the user missed in paraphrase is a blessing. anything to compound the situation.

oh my god please don't mod me down because i admitted to file sharing.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Erik Hollensbe]

The job of a lawyer isn't that it's enforcable, but that it's enforcable enough to keep it out of court.

I mean really, who calls up their lawyer everytime they're given a EULA? And second, who calls them when they've been told the EULA has been violated?

I'm sure there are some, but they are in the distinct minority simply because:

1) Those who do not have the money to fight giant corporations don't, and
2) Those who do are so protective of their money it's better to cut your losses and run.

So, unless you're getting pro bono help by someone worth their weight in bar admissions, it's just not happening.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[CaptDeuce]

This is probably a way of hiding 'offensive' paragraphs.

Perhaps you are referring to parts like this:

Your account information is owned by and proprietary to American Airlines.

Gee, I won't even own my own mailing address if I sign up. I wonder how USPS feels about this.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Sentry21]

For example, one clause "By using the Site, you represent and warrant that you are 18 years of age or older and possess the legal right and ability to enter into this Agreement and to use the Site in accordance with all of the terms and conditions of this Agreement" could cause more than a number of problems. Say someone under the age of 18 purchases a ticket from them online...now what? are they legally obligated to actually provide a service to this person, even though said customer is technically not allowed to use the site?

What I remember from law class is that if someone is under 18, they (AA) are bound by the terms of the agreement, but the minor is not. This is a standard way of protecting oneself, and isn't nearly uncommon. That being said, I'd expect that this would only come into play in such a situation, and would prevent AA from being held to an unfair (to them) deal. It's basically a way to get out of a contract that the other side isn't necessarily being held to, or perhaps even to enforce the contract despite the minor's age.

--Dan

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Surak]

And then at the end of it all, there's the biggest CYA: You may not: S. Engage in any other conduct that is, or that American Airlines deems to be, in conflict with this Agreement.

(IANAL)

They're basically saying "You can't do anything we don't like." Whether the clause is enforceable or not depends on what you did. It's actually pretty useless as a clause, IMHO, because the only thing that clause can protect is their private property and IP rights.

American Airlines will not treat as confidential any communications you send to us by electronic mail or otherwise. American Airlines has no obligation to refrain from publishing, reproducing, or otherwise using your communications in any way and for any purpose.

Really? So they can publish my credit card number on their Web site or in their TV commercials?

Real answer: Nope. The clause is not enforceable in many cases because they have a duty of care to protect any confidential information you give them regardless of what this clause says.

Crap like this falls along the same lines as the signs on public lockers that say "Store stuff here at your own risk." Regardless of the sign, if the locker you use becomes broken into because, for instance, the locker was in a state of disrepair, the owner of the locker as not met his duty of care and is therefore guilty of negligence and is liable to you for damages.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[vadim_t]

What can you download with Kazaa has absolutely no place in its EULA. EULAs are supposed to be used to impose some conditions on the user (reverse engineering) that somehow affect the creators of the tool. What files you download with it shouldn't matter. Downloading copyrighted material you don't have rights to is already illegal, EULA or no EULA.

It's like having an EULA for a car that says you agree not to use it for kidnapping. Since that's already illegal it makes no sense to put it there.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[valdis]

You trimmed too much. Try this:

You agree to [...] indemnify [...] American Airlines [...] from and against any and all *CLAIMS*, ... , *suits*,... including [...] taxes [...] resulting from your use of the Site,

Which means "You agree to not sue or file claims against AA for anything, including taxes, resulting from use of the site".

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[bob]

One of my favorite examples of this is Starpower's Internet access agreement, in section "VII. No Warranties". Quoting,

4. You may not rely on oral or written information or advice given by STARPOWER's officers, directors, employees, agents, authorized representatives, subcontractors or affiliates and/or their officers, directors, employees, agents, authorized representatives, or subcontractors or affiliates to create a warranty or increase the scope of warranty already established in these terms and conditions. Your rights and STARPOWER's responsibilities are limited to the warranties that are expressed in these written terms and conditions that have been established by STARPOWER to govern the use of the Access Service.

IOW, you agree that our sales droids, our sales droids managers -- anyone all the way up to the head of the company, really -- can feed you any line of bullshit they care to in order to get you to sign up with us, and absolutely none of it commits us to anything.

"Sure you can run servers off your cable modem."

"Of course you can have static IPs. How many would you like?"

"With our latest improvements, we're able to offer you 10Mbps unrestricted bandwidth with no upstream bottlenecks."

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[douglas jeffries]

EULAs are supposed to be used to impose some conditions on the user (reverse engineering) that somehow affect the creators of the tool.

in this case, it does because without such a clause the authors might be help responsible for what the users are doing (by providing a crime-enabling product). the clause is there to prevent that from happening by transferring whatever legal liability they might have to the users.

this is why your car analogy isn't so good. no one's going to say the car company is responsible for the kidnapping, because most people understand the automotive industry well enough to distinguish between a product and its usage. most people (and especially the law) do not understand the software industry that well.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[fintler]

did you even read the article? c'mon people

(laugh, it's a joke)

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[GigsVT]

In legal terms, the contract is revokable at the option of the minor. Most contracts with minors are this way except for a few exceptions, contracts for artistic work of the minor, sports, certain contracts for health care services to the minor. Emancipated or married minors can enter binding contracts as if they were adults normally also.

The thing is, since they said "You warrant that you are 18" in the contract, a minor cannot agree to it without making a material misrepresentation, so the contract is not binding to AA either. Either side can declare the contract null and void at any time, but neither is forced to.

That's my understanding of it.

As always, IANAL. Not legal advice.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Marc2k]

I don't necessarily agree. I'll accept that a document comprised of the main points of the EULA would be deleterious to both the user and manufacturer, as key points that aren't deemed major slip through the cracks. However, you'll be hard pressed to find a legal term that can't be translated into layman speak. An exact translation would be too verbose, but if there were a line-for-line translation into plain English, perhaps that would prove to suit the needs of all parties involved.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[jmo_jon]

For use of certain services, we may provide you with a pass code. This pass code is proprietary to and the property of American Airlines. However, you must take precautions to insure the security of your pass code. American Airlines assumes no responsibility for and will not be liable in the event that another person learns your pass code or uses your pass code to cause damage to you.

This feels like a typcial thing they'd want to hide. As I understand it:
1. AA owns the passcode
2. You are responsable for it's security
3. If someone hacks the AA db and uses the stolen passcode from there to book flights in your name AA takes no responsability.

So basicly what one would want to do is make sure that the security guys are good there or it's your ass that gets burned?

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[gaudior]

Leave, then. Don't let the door hit you on the ass.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[incongruent]

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless American Airlines and its affiliates from and against any and all claims, demands, proceedings, suits and actions, including any related liabilities, obligations, losses, damages, deficiencies, penalties, taxes, levies, fines, judgments, settlements, expenses (including legal and accountants' fees and disbursements) and costs collectively, "Claims"), based on, arising out of or resulting from your use of the Site,

It seems to me that this can also say that by consenting to the agreement, if you use the "site" to obtain a plane ticket, you cannot hold the airline liable for any event arising out of that purchase. Things like death or injury incurred because of the neglegence of the airline could be included on that list.

"So they own everything, yet in the next paragraph they say that whatever you post to the site is fully your responsibility and they have no obligations whatsoever. Now, which will it be ? Is it *their* material or *my* material ?"

Basicly, the theme appears to be (as with almost any corporation), if it's profitable for them, they want the benefits, but not the responsibility. It's sickening that humanity is put behind profit in such ways.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[orangesquid]

But what country *wants* me? "Sick of the USA, no real reason to go anywhere else. Reluctant to leave it all behind. Call xxx-xxxx if interested."

It's very expensive to leave, and I would be leaving behind all my friends...

Even though many areas in the US are not community-oriented, I have created my own community, and I do not wish to kick myself out!

Let's treat the disease, not treat the symptoms.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[jdavidb]

Maybe, but the real solution would be to realize that advertisements and sales activity have no business being covered by an EULA.

But maybe that's just one of my crazy ideas...

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, this is one of those things that will require the government to step in and set a standard. In the same way that the FDA has mandated ingredient lables - some gov't entity needs to step in and set a standard.

Before the Food Labelling Act it was a nightmare for people that had allergies - just a simple substance like tomatoes can be found even in small quantities of some very "un-tomato-like" products.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Christianfreak]

There's UCITA at work. Wasn't there a big fuss about a hundred and fifty years ago about one state's laws being enforced in another? That and something about those who forget the lessons of history...

I live in Texas and as far as I know we have not passed UCITA. Texas legislature only meets 6 months out of every 24 to keep us from passing too many laws (it doesn't always work but it helps). The reason that American Airlines wants to be governed by the laws of Texas is because the are headquartered in Dallas. Probably in there so when someone sues them they can point to the clause and say "See you have to come here to fight us" and they don't have to send an army of lawyers to North Dakota or something like that.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[xyzzy-ladder]

I wonder if this is enforceable? Can they actually change significant (or not so significant) parts of the agreement, not notify anyone, and enforce it?

I wonder is there a way that customers can make up contracts and enforce them against corporations? Something like, "by sending email to this address, you agree to A, B, C".

For some reasons, I expect that the law is pretty much in the corporations favor.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Fastball]

What they don't realize however, is that these agreements probably wouldn't stand up under any light.

I agree but wonder, if this is typically the case, why do companies, businesses, and individuals persist on using such long, useless verbage?

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[peg0cjs]

This is why his analogy is EXACTLY correct. What, precisely, is a crime-enabling product? It's pretty easy to break a law with virtually anything. The NRA and gun companies have repeatedly (and successfully) argued for more personal responsibility about how products are used (a la "guns don't kill people..."). Why should IP laws be any different?

Someone can rob a bank and use a getaway car, or they can use Kazaa to download illegal files. Does that make Ford more/less liable than Kazaa? Neither should be liable because it was the *user* who broke the law. The activity was already forbidden by law, the tools used are irrelevant because, guess what, each has a completely legitimate and legal use!

If some horny toad out there downloads child porn off usenet using Outlook Express, should MSFT be held accountable? (hmmm...actually that may be interesting!)

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Out4Blood]

"What, precisely, is a crime-enabling product?"

If I were in charge of defining it (which I am not, BTW) I'd say it was something that was integral to committing or proliferating the crime (e.g., it couldn't have been done without it.)

On second thought, using that logic, I'd conclude that the internet itself is the "crime-enabling product" in this case.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[peg0cjs]

...integral to committing or proliferating the crime...

Box cutters also fit that profile, but I don't hear too many calls to make the use of box cutters illegal.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Twirlip of the Mists]

What, precisely, is a crime-enabling product?

Seems to me that it would be-- if it had a legal definition, which I'm not sure that it does-- any item that has no reasonable legitimate purpose other than the furtherance of a crime. Lock-picking equipment is illegal is many, or most, jurisdictions because it has no purpose other than the opening of locks without a key. Cars are legal because they have tons of purposes other than to serve as a getaway device during a kidnapping.

Kazaa probably has no legitimate legal use. But I don't use it-- because I'm a Mac guy, not because of any delusion of moral superiority-- so I can't say that for sure.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Latent IT]

I agree but wonder, if this is typically the case, why do companies, businesses, and individuals persist on using such long, useless verbage?

All my legal experience is from John Grisham books, and all my statistics are completely fabricated. Consider that a warning!

Very likely, it's because most people don't get themselves a lawyer. As a company, you have a very good chance of snowballing someone who has a serious legitamate grievance by showing them a contract they agreed to absolving you of all blame, and then offering them a lowball settlement, and getting them to sign the rest of their rights away.

Even if the thing they signed wasn't legally binding. Or even applicable. Or even if they didn't agree to it.

It sucks, but... well... no, it just sucks.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Blue Stone]

Actually, I think the original poster got it right, but the important thing, at least here in England, would be that if any reasonable person couldn't understand it [and I'll say that several reasonable people seem to be having difficulty understanding it's meaning] then (IANAL) the meaning upheld shall be that which is most favourable to the consumer.

Of course the whole thing is based on the entirely unresonable belief that any reasonable or average consumer would a) read it all and b) read it all and understand it, before clicking "I accept."

IMHO, these EULAs are lawyer power-trip wet-dreams; they're what people would give themselves if they could give themselves indemnity from any risk whatsoever, and make everyone else carry the buck, responsibility etc.

It's all "kids saying what they would do if they were God/King/Ruler of The World.

In the UK the Office of Fair Trading would strike out about half this eula, if you ask me. They have on their website a pdf of stuff they made companies change in their on-line contracts, some of it is hilarious.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Blue Stone]

Tracked down the urls of the site:

http://www.oft.gov.uk/Business/Legal+Powers/unfair +what+is.htm [what the OFT of the UK considers unfair]

http://www.oft.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/extyc76c3zvz6n5 pvdac3u3obr637fs3mbynvd2qhkyzgrgenny6xridnc2mwasb3 2trgh4si4gdg2bt2gp5viz4jvh/oft311-annexea.pdf [a 192kb pdf of examples of unfair terms that the OFT corrected or removed from contracts... worth a read, it includes a couple from Microsoft, most from Double-Glazing companies, and a couple from Scan.co.uk, a company who I've been made out of pocket by, because of their contract, and their lies that they'd re-imburse me despite them (they didn't).... anyway some of the examples are very funny.]

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[peg0cjs]

Kazaa has a perfectly legitimate use which is the peer-to-peer sharing of non-IP or copyrighted works. Despite what the RIAA wants people to believe, there are all kinds of files being spread around the net that have absolutely no IP restrictions on them.

This includes, but is in no way limited to, public domain information, jokes, freeware, shareware, independent artist music releases, etc, etc. Not everything being downloaded on Kazaa/Morpheus/Napster/GNUtella/etc is the latest Backstreet Boys single.

Even lock-picking equipment has a perfectly legal use: picking locks you own. There's an entire locksmithing industry out there that is totally dependent on the ability to defeat the security of the locks put in place by their clients who have lost their keys.

You would be pretty hard-pressed to find a single invention that has NO legitimate use whatsoever, which is why it's foolish to try and restrict their use through EULA's or other contracts. The law already forbids these illegal activities. If those laws can't be enforced then they need to be changed. Simply going after the tools is the lazy approach.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Bubba-Zaur]

Umm...I thought 99% of people don't read the license/disclamer/ect. to begin with...

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Even lock-picking equipment has a perfectly legal use: picking locks you own.

In my state, at least, locksmiths have to be licensed. You can't buy certain tools unless you have a license. You can't buy lock picking tools at all.

The law already forbids these illegal activities. If those laws can't be enforced then they need to be changed.

Restricting the mechanism of committing a crime is one part of enforcing the law that defines that crime. If Kazaa, and similar items, are found to be of the same legal standing as lock picking tools, they should be banned. That's up to the legislature to decide, and the judiciary to review.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Eivind]

True nough. But I have to point out the fact that neither Norway nor any other country I can think of will grant asylum status to an applicant based upon the applicant's national leadership being run by a knuckle-dragging inbred moron who is puppetted by a bunch of two-bit millinealist madmen

Well, maybe not. But on the other hand it's not hard for a reasonably educated person to get a work-permit in most european countries. Atleast in Norway it's a lot easier than with your "green-card" circus. (I call it a circus 'cos it includes ridiculous ideas like a freaking *lottery*)

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[peg0cjs]

This thread has drifted way off-topic, so let's try to swing things back a bit. Yes, locksmiths need to be licensed in many jurisdictions, just like drivers need to be licensed before they hop on the highways. The point is that it shouldn't be in the EULA/license/permit to restrict these activities since the law already does.

We live in a pretty litigious society, and we have plenty of laws (some good, some less good). We don't need duplicate laws to outlaw that which is already outlawed. This is one reason why laws like the DMCA are so loved around here: because they try to restrict tools that _CAN_ be used to engage in activities that are already illegal, but which have all kinds of legitimate uses. We don't need EULAs restricting what is already restricted.

When you get a driver's license, you don't need to accept a contract saying you won't kidnap anyone with your car, do you?

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Twirlip of the Mists]

In some ways you're right, but you also said a couple of things that are wrong. The first one was, "We don't need duplicate laws to outlaw that which is already outlawed." Nobody here is talking about duplicate laws. We're talking about license agreements. A license agreement isn't a law; it's a contract between two parties granting one party permission to use software in return for some payment or other concession. It's perfectly reasonable for contracts to contain clauses that limit liability. (Wow. Alliteration boy is in the house.) There's nothing wrong with that. Company A says, "We tacitly acknowledge that it's possible for you to use our product to commit a crime. We therefore require you, as a condition of using our product, not to commit any crimes with it. If you do, you're in violation of your license, and you're using the software without authorization. We are therefore not responsible for what you do with it during that unauthorized use."

Of course, some software, as we've already discussed, basically has no legitimate legal use. (I'm going to back off the Kazaa thing, because in some ways it's fundamentally no different from FTP, and FTP has legitimate uses out the wazoo. But I think it's fair to say that there's some software out there somewhere that has no legitimate use at all, and that only exists in order to cause mayhem.) In that case, the vendor's saying that illegal use of the software is prohibited is a farce. It's kind of like those web and FTP sites-- we've all seen 'em-- that say the MP3s aboard are for evaluation purposes only and must be deleted after 24 hours. Like that somehow gets around the fact that you're illegally distributing copyrighted materials. All the disclaimers in the world won't help you there.

The other thing you said that I disagree with is this: "This is one reason why laws like the DMCA are so loved around here: because they try to restrict tools that _CAN_ be used to engage in activities that are already illegal, but which have all kinds of legitimate uses." I don't know what DMCA you're talking about, but that's not a valid interpretation of the one I've read. The DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent copy protection, or to distribute tools that exist solely for the purpose of circumventing copy protection. It can't be used to restrict tools that can be used to circumvent copy protection; the wording of the law is very specific on that point.

Then there's your last point, "When you get a driver's license, you don't need to accept a contract saying you won't kidnap anyone with your car, do you?" As a matter of fact, you do. When I got my driver's license, umpteen years ago in another state, I signed a piece of paper saying that I understood that my license authorized me to operate any appropriate vehicle in accordance with the laws governing such use. It wasn't a contract, but it was an explicit statement of the implied contract I was entering into with the state. If I speed, the state has the right to pull me over and make me beg for mercy. It's not a contract in the sense of a license agreement, but it's a legally binding arrangement nonetheless.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[peg0cjs]

Nobody here is talking about duplicate laws. We're talking about license agreements.

Fair enough. This whole thread is a result of the AA EULA that basically said: You are in violation of this agreement if you do something illegal with our site. Kinda redundent, but I won't harp.

As for the software that has absolutely no legitimate use, I am waiting for an example. Hacker tools, rippers, DeCSS, etc, all have perfectly legal applications that are permitted in certain scenarios. Again, I won't harp.

I don't know what DMCA you're talking about, but that's not a valid interpretation of the one I've read.

The DMCA goes even further than what you've indicated in your post. It makes the analysis of copy protection software illegal. It prevents people from exercising fair-use rights. DeCSS, which was designed for a legitimate purpose (viewing DVDs on Linux), was deemed illegal. 2600 was sued under the DMCA and was given a cease and desist order for distributing it. How is the DMCA not attacking tools with legitimate purposes here?

When I got my driver's license [...] I signed a piece of paper saying that I understood that my license authorized me to operate any appropriate vehicle in accordance with the laws governing such use

As you said, that was not a contract. If you sped, you weren't prosecuted under the agreement which stated you would follow the laws, you were prosecuted under the law itself. Having a contract which states "Thou shalt do nothing that violates the law" is pointless, because the statutory law is "higher" than contract law.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff

[Twirlip of the Mists]

It makes the analysis of copy protection software illegal.

Wrong. The reverse engineering of copy protection devices for the purposes of circumventing copy protection is illegal. The distribution of a device that circumvents a copy protection mechanism is illegal. Distributing instructions describing how to circumvent a copy protection system is illegal. Some people-- including, evidently, yourself-- have jumped to the conclusion that analysis of copy protection mechanisms is now illegal. That's just bull. If you want to analyize a copy protection mechanism, go right ahead. Just don't cross the lines described in the DMCA, and you're completely fine.

It prevents people from exercising fair-use rights.

That's for the court to decide. I believe you're wrong again. The DMCA makes it illegal to distribute devices that circumvent copy protection. If a copy prevention mechanism prevents people from making fair use of a work-- fair use, of course, not being a right, but a privilege granted by Title 17 as an exception to copyright, which is a right-- then that copy prevention mechanism may be in violation of the law. The law protecting copy prevention mechanisms in principle is not flawed on those grounds.

DeCSS, which was designed for a legitimate purpose (viewing DVDs on Linux), was deemed illegal.

DeCSS was designed for the sole purpose of decrypting DVDs without authorization. It doesn't matter why you're decrypting DVDs without authorization; it only matters that you are doing so, and that doing so is illegal. DeCSS has no legitimate legal use. If DeCSS were erased from existence tomorrow, no one at all would be harmed by its absence. Therefore it serves no legitmate purpose. If you want to watch DVDs, use one of the myriad licensed playback devices that are widely available. Don't illegally circumvent the encryption that the manufacturers put on the discs.

How is the DMCA not attacking tools with legitimate purposes here?

I think I've demonstrated that quite clearly.

Having a contract which states "Thou shalt do nothing that violates the law" is pointless, because the statutory law is "higher" than contract law.

Of course it's not pointless. Isn't that clear to you by now? It's a limitation of liability on the part of the vendor, and it's a perfectly reasonable and legitimate thing. It's not pointless, and it's not redundant.

probably makes it the most useless agreement

[SystematicPsycho]

Seriously, other than lawyers, ppl studying law and judges, who the hell reads these agrements anyway? Does clicking 'I agree' classify as an electronic signature? I mean you could accidentally hit 'I agree'. It isn't like you can accidentally sign a contract from the bank.

Maybe slashdot should open up a 'silly EULA' competition along with the 'silly patents'.

Re:probably makes it the most useless agreement

[Sn4xx0r]

I mean you could accidentally hit 'I agree'.

Shut up. If, the next time we need to go past an EULA, we need to type some kind of word shown as an image that can only be read using a mirror, a prism, and polaroid glasses, we all know you're to blame!

Re:probably makes it the most useless agreement

[SystematicPsycho]

well.. "It was an accident" has a chance of holding up in court, "I signed it by accident" won't.

Re:probably makes it the most useless agreement

[Qrlx]

I think it's IBM that when you are downloading a new BIOS for your ThinkPad or whatever, you actually have to type "agree" for the installer to make the boot floppy with the new BIOS image on it.

What I'm not understanding is why don't we DOS their lawyers, by asking a LOT of technical questions about this "agreement." Like call the 800 number and tell them you have a question about para. 14, line 8 in the online agreement, and you'd like some clarification. Then send certified mail asking the same thing.

It wouldn't acomplish much, but it would make some poor schmuck's day at the office more miserable. Schadenfeude or whatever you call it. It would also be cool to know if there could be such thing of a write-in slashdot effect.

By the way, did you know that when you call AA to book a flight, you could be talking to a prison inmate? I feel warm and fuzzy just thinking about telling convicted felons the exact dates I won't be in my home.

Re:probably makes it the most useless agreement

[LittleGuy]

I mean you could accidentally hit 'I agree'.

That's ridiculous. I mean, it takes a concerted effort to click "accept", and...

Oh wait, pop-up ads on the onther browser windows,...

Uh oh. Damn.

Forget what I said. I just signed my soul away to American Airlines.

Re:probably makes it the most useless agreement

[CowboyMeal]

If you aren't bound to a mouse and are just hitting enter through the install, it is quite easy to agree to the accidental EULA.

Of course, most of them have the keyboard focus set to "disagree" by default, but i have used some where "agree" is default.

Re:probably makes it the most useless agreement

[vjl]

Heh. I simply clicked "I do not agree" using Galeon, with javascript and popups turned off. Guess what? I'm directed to their home page! So I guess I can still use their site, even if I don't agree with their EULA. Spiffy.

/vjl/

Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not like we really read the disclaimers. The only websites I read the disclaimers are porn sites, because you never know if they say, "By clicking here you agree to be billed $29.99"

Heh...

[BrainInAJar]

I checked the EULA out, and apparantly, it is inconsequential weather or not you click "i agree" or "i do not agree"

Clicking "i do not agree" still brings you to the same page...

Re:Heh...

[mlush]

Yeah, what's up with that? An offer you can't refuse.

More like an offer you can't understand

Re:Heh...

[dsoltesz]

Clicking "i do not agree" still brings you to the same page...

I didn't get that - "Accept" takes you to an enrollment form, "Do not accept" takes you to a flight finder that basically is the home page.

Re:Heh...

[slow_flight]

I was wondering if they track the number of time "I do not agree" is chosen. Currently the count is probably at one (your test of what happens when it's clicked). I wonder if they would re-think their terms if that count started to increase as people were to actually read the thing and mumble "fu*k you" on their way to Southwest.com.

Re:Heh...

[whereiswaldo]

I was wondering if they track the number of time "I do not agree" is chosen.

Unfortunately for statistics gathering purposes, I bet most people simply close their browser window (I do). I don't click any more buttons than I have to because usually the logic goes "If they don't want to surf *our* site, we'll redirect them to a page with zillions of popups and advertising and get paid 0.002 cents in exchange".

From the Website....

[tanveer1979]

News Flash: Our site is being attacked by loony hackers. Sorry you cannot book any tickets today.

Probably the first time in history that an airline had to close down due to slashdot.

Slashdotting Forbidden !

[Fruny]

According to this :

O. Take any action that will or could impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our site infrastructure.

Re:Slashdotting Forbidden !

[tulare]

Touche - I thought they must have had a /. clause in there somewhere. Of course, there's also this line further down:

American Airlines specifically denies you permission to hyperlink or provide references to the Site, unless you are allowed to do so under a separate written agreement with American Airlines.

Heh.

Re:Slashdotting Forbidden !

[syylk]

I thought they must have had a /. clause in there somewhere.

What's the problem?

Timothy simply didn't agree to the terms of service!

Voila'!

Re:Slashdotting Forbidden !

[mindflow]

We never clicked "I agree" did we?!?

Disclaimer

[cebarro]

Funny - it's quicker to NOT ACCEPT as accepting takes you to the AAdvantage enrollment while NOT accepting drops you right into making a reservation.

Re:Disclaimer

[mizhi]

Imagine the poor soul that takes the time to read this entire agreement and winds up missing his flight. :-)

Re:Disclaimer

[Galvatron]

Hey, genius-boy, the disclaimer is FOR the AAdvantage enrollment. Take a look at the URL: https://www.aa.com/apps/AAdvantage/InstantEnrollme nt.jhtml.

So how is it "quicker" to get dumped back to the reservation page (the page you came from initially), when you're trying to enroll in the AAdvantage program? Oh, that's right, it's not, you're just a fucking moron.

Idiot...

Re:Disclaimer

[MyHair]

Not a problem. Just print it out and read it a couple of times while in line for the security check.

it is a violation!

[GoatPigSheep]

However even mentioning this is probably in violation of the text

taken from the disclaimer:

American Airlines specifically denies you permission to hyperlink or provide references to the Site, unless you are allowed to do so under a separate written agreement with American Airlines

so yes, you did violate a portion of it :)

Re:it is a violation!

[noackjr]

Would it be better to provide this link (see first hit):

Google Search: "american airlines instant enrollment"

Does this mean Google is infringing?

Re:it is a violation!

[pacc]

Does this mean Google is infringing?

Since when are you bound to a contract by reading it?

" If you do not intend to be legally bound by these terms and conditions, do not access and use the Site. "

The obvious solution would be to use
the google cache instead if you want to find out if it's legal for you to go to the Site at all.

Re:it is a violation!

[copterdoc]

It's OK. They clicked "I do not agree" first.

Re:it is a violation!

[AcquaCow]

taken from the disclaimer:

American Airlines specifically denies you permission to hyperlink or provide references to the Site, unless you are allowed to do so under a separate written agreement with American Airlines

Yeah, you too =)

M. Monitor or copy any Content by using any manual process, or any robot, spider, or other automatic device, without first obtaining American Airlines' prior written consent.

(I'd document my source, but that violates the agreement too =P)

-- AcquaCow

Re:it is a violation!

[WTF Wazzat]

On the other hand, you can link to it without reading the legalese just as you can access the whole site without reading it.

And they call this...

[raboofje]

InstantEnrollment.jhtml. Certainly they don't expect users to read the agreement ;). The current tendency to make those agreements larger and larger and larger is a very bad thing: the result is that the casual reader just won't read them any more. A pretty funny example is the 'FriendGreeting' online greeting card, where the software politely asks your permission to mail the card to every one in your address book. Everyone just seems to press 'I Accept' - and that is totally understandable. Maybe indeed there should be a mandatory 'this license at a glance'-section for those things.

This article is probably illegal :)

[rehabdoll]

"You may not copy, display, distribute, download, license, modify, publish, re-post, reproduce, reuse, sell, transmit, use to create a derivative work, or otherwise use the content of the Site for public or commercial purposes. Nothing on the Site shall be construed to confer any grant or license of any intellectual property rights, whether by estoppel, by implication, or otherwise."

If you cant even display it, how is it legal to even review the agreement? :D

Re:This article is probably illegal :)

[Performer Guy]

Nobody posted any of the contents. Of course it's legal to mention it. Besides, you don't have to accept the agreement to read it, or comment on it so you are not bound by it in any way.

Re:This article is probably illegal :)

[RAMMS EIN]

``If you cant even display it, how is it legal to even review the agreement?''
Because it doesn't say anything about displaying it for _personal_ use. At least, not in the part you cited. Cheers!

Re:This article is probably illegal :)

[doug363]

But your computer makes a local copy of the agreement so that you can read it. Making that copy may not be legal unless you're licensed to do it, i.e. you've agreed ;). (This is more or less the justification that software companies use for putting EULAs on their software. You're not allowed to run the software unless you accept the EULA because your computer makes a copy to put in RAM.)

Re:This article is probably illegal :)

[Performer Guy]

That is just deliberately muddled thinking, don't excuse it with a smiley, you're confusing people. They put it on the web, therefore they know you're going to view it, viewing it does not constitute an agreement. The click through license has some legal weight to it now but it does require a CLICK THROUGH, understand? You need to click your agreement, it's not a passive thing.

Re:This article is probably illegal :)

[Bartmoss]

The weird thing is that to view the pages, your browser has to download them; commercial use in my eyes would definitely include ticket booking by a corporate customer.

This eula is a load of crap.

I propose that all slashdot users go to the site and click "I do not accept". That's a great way to tell them what we think, plus it looks like you get to their functional site anyway.

Re:This article is probably illegal :)

[darien]

Stuff like: "you agree that you are over 18 and are allowed to sign this eula" is simply ridiculous since a person younger than 18 CANNOT BE HELD BY IT anyway...

Maybe it's different in the US, but certainly in the UK there's no general reason why minors can't enter into legal agreements. Otherwise (just off the top of my head) they wouldn't be legally able to walk into a shop and buy sweets, or indeed to buy and install a copy of Windows.

Re:This article is probably illegal :)

[Hope Thelps]

Because it doesn't say anything about displaying it for _personal_ use. At least, not in the part you cited. Cheers!

Provided that you don't engage in commerce, for example by buying a ticket from them, since commerical use is banned.

Re:This article is probably illegal :)

[Hope Thelps]

Maybe it's different in the US, but certainly in the UK there's no general reason why minors can't enter into legal agreements. Otherwise (just off the top of my head) they wouldn't be legally able to walk into a shop and buy sweets, or indeed to buy and install a copy of Windows.

In the UK minors can enter into contracts, and those contracts are valid. However the contracts are voidable by the minor i.e. at whatever point they want to cancel the contract and not be further bound by it they can.

Re:This article is probably illegal :)

[Hope Thelps]

Actually, try here for a much more thorough analysis :
http://www.lawreform.ie/publications/data/volum e1/ lrc_3.html
but general rule is what I said, most contracts with minors are valid unless and until repudiated by the minor

"So don't accept...

[gafferted]

Clicking "I do not accept" appears to still grant access to the site.

So I can still book a flight without agreeing to donate my firstborn to their catering department.

Andrew

Re:"So don't accept...

[screwballicus]

donate my firstborn to their catering department.

At least maybe then the food would be edible.

Re:"So don't accept...

[KjetilK]

Hehe, yeah, I did that too.

Perhaps, if a lot of people click "I don't accept", they might get the message...

Re:"So don't accept...

[tapper]

Everyone seems to have not read the page. This EULA covers signing up for their Frequent Flyer program, it is not about booking flights or searching... If you don't accept you can't sign up for Frequent flyer online. You don't even get this if all you are doing is booking a flight.

EUA Violations

[Associate]

"However even mentioning this is probably in violation of the text."

Not to mention linking without approval.

AAs AllAdvantage Program or Website?

[spacefight]

It's about AAs frequent flyer program, not about the whole site (the title and the URL says it):

If you choose not to accept these terms, you may enroll in the AAdvantage program offline by contacting AAdvantage Reservations/Customer Service.

I miss one paragraph

[roguerez]

"You're not allowed to use our planes to fly them into buildings."

Re:I miss one paragraph

[flewp]

Well, the terrorists simply clicked "I do not agree"...

They wrote it for a reason

[hoegg]

I decided to scroll around it for a minute and happened upon this gem:

You agree and understand that you will not bring against AMR Corporation, American Airlines, or any of its affiliated entities, agents, directors, employees, and/or officers any class action lawsuit related to your access to, dealings with, or use of the Site.

I mean, that's stupid. If your incompetent network admin leaks the travel schedules of me and 10,000 other Americans, we "voluntarily" waive the right to sue you?

If I was me (and I am), I would simply choose another airline who doesn't want to try and hoodwink me into something I will regret.

Re:They wrote it for a reason

[SlashChick]

"If I was me (and I am)..."

Thanks for clarifying that. ;)

Re:They wrote it for a reason

[thejk]

Actually, they probably cannot enforce that, if it comes to it. For a reference, see the recent ruling for Comb v. PayPal. Basically, you cannot make end users give up their basic legal rights through EULA, etc., if I understand the ruling correctly. But, hey, IANAL. Somewhat off-topic, it really bothers me that EULAs and most legal documents are, well, written in abstruse legalese. Is anyone aware of a movement in the US to limit the use of complex legalese in favor of plain engligh? I have found the following sites on google, but they are mostly for other countries -- except one that refers to the Michigan Bar effort.

• UK: www.plainenglish.co.uk/law.html
• India: http://www.globallawreview.com/lr8.html
• Michigan Bar: http://www.michbar.org/committees/penglish/columns /131.html

Re:They wrote it for a reason

[back_pages]

I think programmers should submit all legal correspondence in either assembly, Perl, or Lisp.

Re:They wrote it for a reason

[Tomster]

Somewhat off-topic, it really bothers me that EULAs and most legal documents are, well, written in abstruse legalese. Is anyone aware of a movement in the US to limit the use of complex legalese in favor of plain engligh?

Somewhat off-topic, it really bothers me that most computer documents are, well, written in abstruse 'technicalese'. Is anyone aware of a movement in the US to limit the use of complicated 'technicalese' in favor of plain engligh?

Somewhat off-topic, it really bothers me that most medical documents are, well, written in abstruse 'medicalese'. Is anyone aware of a movement in the US to limit the use of complicated 'medicalese' in favor of plain engligh?

Legalese is painful to read, but it exists for a good reason, just like 'technicalese' or 'medicalese' or other 'ese's. I feel your pain though, I do a little patent work in our office and that stuff is a nightmare.

-Thomas

Re:They wrote it for a reason

[Zathrus]

No, no, no...

"Technicalese" is a misnomer. Documents that are for consumption by the average user do not use the same jargon and poor sentence structure as documents meant for a sysadmin or programmer. Yes, there are tons of instances where this isn't true - and the docs suck. This is why programmers should not write docs and you should hire tech writers to do so (yes, I say this as a programmer).

Medical materials certainly do have "medicalese", but they also have a plain text section that is much easier to read. The prescription drug industry discovered this was necessary after people started suing them for being unable to determine what the side effects were, what the drug interactions were, etc.

Legal documents usually have no such section. It's very much a case of the lawyers building a wall around their own industry to keep the common person out. Sooner or later some of these absurd EULAs are going to be challenged and struck down for not being understandable by the average reader. Equally important, it's absurd to expect someone to read and understand a 3500 word document just to buy an airline ticket.

Re:They wrote it for a reason

[Auzure]

"It's very much a case of the lawyers building a wall around their own industry to keep the common person out." if you really believe this, let me ask you a question: If legal contracts were to include a plain language section -- which would be legally enforcable? The legalese, or the plain language? If it is the plain language, why even include the legalese? If it is the legalese, then the plain language would be superfluous at best, and misleading at worst.

Re:They wrote it for a reason

[CowboyMeal]

Is anyone aware of a movement in the US to limit the use of complex legalese in favor of plain engligh?

Engligh? Is that like engrish? Eh, that would probably be better than legalese anyway.

At least more entertaining... "All your civil liberties are belong to us!"

Re:They wrote it for a reason

[stet]

I would simply choose another airline who doesn't want to try and hoodwink me into something I will regret.
Doesn't matter. The gov't will just take your rmoney and give it to them anyway.

Re:They wrote it for a reason

[hoegg]

Hey, sometimes people need to be reminded. :)

Re:They wrote it for a reason

[thejk]

Instead of repeating, I will add to (and disagree in part with) what Zathrus said. Sure, legalese serves a need, the need to be precise. But precision and intelligibility (i.e. clarity) are not mutually exclusive. This is the meat of my argument. They *are* compatible, and one must not be sacrificed for the sake of the other in legal documents. Without much further ado in this regard, let me simply offer you a much better argument already made by someone else.

As for my disagreement with Zathrus, I don't think that the evil conspiracy by selfish (and insecure) lawyers is behind the use of legalese. The need for precision *and* the lawyers' laziness seem more likely reasons to me. Plain and simple, it would take more time for the American Airline's team of lawyers to come up with more intelligible yet equally precise EULA. They chose not to spend that extra time, and that's what bothers me.

Re:They wrote it for a reason

[Tomster]

I think we are perhaps making a distinction between the need to express things in a precise and complete fashion, and the difficulty of being both precise and clear.

My original point was simply that legal language fills a need to be precise in the legal realm, just as medical terminology fills a need to be precise. What you've made clear is that legal language is often not very clear. (I just re-read that sentence... the pun wasn't intended but I like it, so it stands.)

So shall we hang all the lawyers and start over? :)

-Thomas

If we're hack and you loose money, not our fault.

[dszd0g]

That's the main thing I got out of a quick skim. It's your responsibility to protect your pass code, but if their system is compromised and someone places an order on your account, it's your fault and they are not liable for any damages that you suffer.

The typical BS that is in almost all EULA.

The Highlights

[KarmaBitch]

American Airlines specifically denies you permission to hyperlink or provide references to the Site

Oops. Sorry Slashdot.. You've been bad


American Airlines will not treat as confidential any communications you send to us by electronic mail or otherwise. American Airlines has no obligation to refrain from publishing, reproducing, or otherwise using your communications in any way and for any purpose.

Thank You for respecting my privacy

------------

An example of lawyers that don't understand technology

Download or upload files that may damage the operation of another's computer, such as computer viruses, corrupt files, or similar software

When was the last time you downloaded something that hurt a website :D

Ohh.. I'm sure there's more intresting stuff in there... And I'm also pretty damn sure it's not the longest EULA...

Re:The Highlights

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Download or upload files that may damage the operation of another's computer, such as computer viruses, corrupt files, or similar software

>When was the last time you downloaded something that hurt a website :D

Um, about 10 seconds ago. It's called the slashdot effect. :-p

Re:The Highlights

[nathanh]

Download or upload files that may damage the operation of another's computer, such as computer viruses, corrupt files, or similar software

When was the last time you downloaded something that hurt a website :D

I've never heard of this happening, but they'd be damn useless lawyers if they didn't write in a clause that covered the unimaginable but possible.

They're not stupid. They're covering all their bases... even the bases they haven't seen yet.

Re:The Highlights

[clacke]

Download or upload files that may damage the operation of another's computer, such as computer viruses, corrupt files, or similar software

When was the last time you downloaded something that hurt a website :D

No no, you don't understand. This means that if they distribute a virus, you are in violation of the agreement. According to the "indemnity obligation" paragraph you would still probably have to defend them in a court of law, should any third party sue them for damaging said third party's software.

Re:The Highlights

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

http://insecuresite.com/cgi-bin/rmdashrfslash ?
or maybe it was the last time we all downloaded a website at the same time and hurt the bandwidth of some server.

Lawyers need jobs too :)

[caluml]

Well, it keeps the lawyers in work.

Disclaimer - I am not a lawyer.

Sorry - Can't Link to the Site either...

[xean]

The license does state that you are not allowed to link to the site...

• American Airlines specifically denies you permission to hyperlink or provide references to the Site, unless you are allowed to do so under a separate written agreement with American Airlines.

I hope timothy didn't accept the license before posting the story.

It does appear that most of it has been stolen from any other terms and conditions page and hacked around to fit American Airlines... Especially all those bits about using their website to distribute files that shouldn't be distributed (who's going to use AA to distribute mp3's?!?!?)

Re:Sorry - Can't Link to the Site either...

[noackjr]

Actually if you click on the "Legal" link in the footer, the "no-link" clause is valid even if all you do is view the page. Thus, the only link you could legally post would be a link to the http://www.aa.com/, as this doesn't require you to have visited the site at all. The implicit license is therefore not in force.

<requisite>IANAL</requisite>

ha

[irve]

1. Open Mozilla
2. Open page with DOM Inspector in sidebar
3. Find the textarea with the text (VERY deep)
4. Right-click and delete it.
5. Accept

One coudl also use the venkman eval to make the text editable and then write your own EULA.

Wow..

[popeyethesailor]

Even the Google cache appears slashdotted by diligent Karma whores. Hell, here's a link, in case anyone's interested.

Note: Posting under a hack3d a/c to prove that i'm a karma donator.

If they screw up

[Mika_Lindman]

"You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless American Airlines and its affiliates from and against any and all claims, demands, proceedings, suits and actions, including any related liabilities, obligations, losses, damages, deficiencies, penalties, taxes, levies, fines, judgments, settlements, expenses (including legal and accountants' fees and disbursements) and costs (collectively, "Claims"), based on, arising out of or resulting from your use of the Site, including without limitation any Claims alleging facts that if true would constitute your breach of this Agreement."

So if you book a ticket online, and they screw up, you can't get your money back?

The law is lacking

[weiyuent]

This is a perfect example of how inadequate laws make life cumbersome for both corporations and their customers.

From the company's standpoint, EULA's could be a real headache, because the company has to hammer out pages upon pages of legalese to cover its own arse.

From the consumer's perspective, ever-expanding EULA's are just as much a nuisance as a potential pitfall when not read properly. It becomes impractical to read them, yet the less you read them before agreeing, the more you expose yourself to being taken advantage of.

The solution is more laws and better laws, and this is where the government CAN do good. If most things that are common sense can be nailed down in public law (i.e. we're not responsible if you scald yourself with hot coffee, we will not spam you, etc.), then EULAs could be trimmed and focused on the unique essentials of a particular situation. That would benefit both consumers and corporations. The only losers in this situation would be all the parasitic lawyers and the sneaky folks with dubious EULAs (*cough* Microsoft *cough*).

Re:The law is lacking

[Mitreya]

Problem is, that the conditions tend to change from the case to case. I suspect that even a reasonable commonsence set changes from case to case. Also, you really do not want a law for every commonsence thing that could occur. There is probably too many of those :)

I was under the impression that an EULA will not hold in court, which is where it will end up sooner or later when some *serious* conflict with the customer will occur.

I bet...

[lendude]

...somewhere in the later third there's a clause reading... "So you've read this far? SUCKED IN!!!"

What's wrong with it?

[Nept]

I think the key line in that agreement is
Likewise, [...] this agreement will be considered broadened to the extent needed to permit [...] third parties to operate within the terms of a written agreement they have entered into with us.
In other words, this policy you have to agree to is only valid as long as it doesn't interfere with agreements AA has and will make with 3rd parties. Which basically means, you're agreeing to anything that AA and its partners agree to.
It reminds me of a lot of EULAs/policies where there is a long list of who the company might and might not share information with and may seem very stringent, but at the very end of the list is a short give away line to the effect that they can share the information with anybody.

Also, it would be illegal according to the terms of the agreement to post this policy here, as in their policy you agree not to "copy, display, distribute, download, license, modify, publish, re-post, reproduce, reuse, sell, transmit" any of their HTML code or "the content of the Site" for public or commercial purposes.

Re:What's wrong with it?

[odie_q]

"Also, it would be illegal according to the terms of the agreement to post this policy here"

Well, I for one am not bound by this agreement, even by AA's definition. I quote: "In return for gaining access to the Site and using it, you agree to be bound by the following Agreement without limitation or qualification"

I never continued past that point, and never clicked the "I agree" button. Of course, it wouldn't make any legal difference if I did.

You're not allowed to look at the site anyway..

[Dynamoo]

The T&Cs say you must not: M. Monitor or copy any Content by using any manual process, or any robot, spider, or other automatic device, without first obtaining American Airlines' prior written consent.. This means that you can't visit the site to read it, surely since that involves monitoring the site with a manual process (i.e. reading it).

Or how about the fact that you must not: O. Take any action that will or could impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our site infrastructure. So no posting on Slashdot either!

Re:You're not allowed to look at the site anyway..

[Low2000]

By the time you have finished reading the EULA, You havent agreed to it yet 8p

Re:You're not allowed to look at the site anyway..

[Llyr]

You can read the EULA until you've agreed to it. After that, no. So if you agree to it, you can't look at it again to see if they've changed it (which the EULA says they have the right to do at any time), and must agree in ignorance to whatever unknown things they say in the future.

Technically reading is not a "manual" process, since it does not involve hands. Copying it down while reading it (in order to check the new copy against the original that you agreed to, or take it to your lawyer) would be.

In related news...

[Jugalator]

Something similar has been posted here before: Longest email disclaimer awards. The longest disclaimer was apparently 7K large and the unlucky "winner" was UBS Warburg.

Also, an analysis of stupid e-mail disclaimers.

Mimed by Airhostesses?

[ukryule]

Couldn't they provide a version of their 'terms & conditions' which includes a little video with airhostesses miming actions to clarify it...

"Our trademarks and logos are protected *here* and *here* ... When you reach paragraph 17 masks will automatically drop from the compartment above. Please ensure that your rights have been securely passed to us before helping those sitting next to you ... etc"

That way everyone could click on the "I accept" after ignoring the whole thing with a clear conscience!

Breaks two records!

[Anenga]

One for the longest disclaimer, and one for the most un-read disclaimer. Hmmm... wonder why?

Dueling banjos - be warned!

[tulare]

Forum for actions, governing law, and procedural restrictions
You agree that this Agreement is made and entered into in Tarrant County, Texas. You agree that Texas law governs this Agreement's interpretation and/or any dispute arising from your access to, dealings with, or use of the Site, without regard to conflicts of law principles.

So if you do happen to, um (looks again at EULA) get busted for swapping copyrighted pr0n on the American Airlines website, you will be under the thumb of Texas law - an institution known as not quite as bad as getting on the bad side of the mob, but since the jails are privately owned and run for profit, it's probably a bad place to be, no?

Never trust a Texan.
--A line from some movie about Geronimo.

Re:Dueling banjos - be warned!

[justzisguy]

Wouldn't Federal law govern this agreement since it deals with interstate commerce?

Re:Dueling banjos - be warned!

[Christianfreak]

but since the jails are privately owned and run for profit, it's probably a bad place to be, no?

How about a hyperlink to back up this completely untrue statement?

Unfortunatly Texas jails have quite a few ammenities that I wish my tax dollars weren't paying for.

Re:Dueling banjos - be warned!

[tulare]

No offense, but the term ignorant comes to mind when I read your comment. Just so you know, there are plenty of references to my "Completely Untrue Statement". Seriously, if you want to whine about your tax dollars, find out how much of them go to subsidize big oil and then wonder why people think and say negative things about the Loner Star State.

Re:Dueling banjos - be warned!

[Mr. Slippery]

How about a hyperlink to back up this completely untrue statement?

Thirty seconds with Google:

Ten percent of Texas prisons are privately run.

In 1999, 15,000 of the state's 151,000 inmates were in privately run prisons.

Unfortunatly Texas jails have quite a few ammenities that I wish my tax dollars weren't paying for.

Since you're ignorant or mislead about such an important issue as privately control of your state's prisions, might I suggest that you take a more careful look at your beliefs about the "ammenities" being provided in prisons?

Re:Dueling banjos - be warned!

[Christianfreak]

Okay fine your statement is about 1/4 true. There are private prisons in Texas, mostly filled with inmates from other states that they shipped here because of over crowding in their own states (no I don't like that either). According to your research we have 38 out of about 115 that exist in the US. (18 other states have them). There is usually a prison for every county in Texas (254 counties), plus some state prisons. That's a long way from "all the prisons in Texas are privately owned".

You didn't actually read it did you ....

[taniwha]

"American Airlines specifically denies you permission to hyperlink or provide references to the Site"

Which has got to be just about the stupidest thing possible .... a web site no one's allowed to link to is one that no one can access.

Re:You didn't actually read it did you ....

[alizard]

Perhaps the largest search engines should be told about this. Wouldn't it be a shame if that site suddenly became invisible to anybody not willing to find AA's URL from a print source and type it in?

Not that I have anything against the company personally, but a company that invokes Darwin should get the consequences they asked for.

just hit "I do not accept"

[jukal]

Did you try hitting the "I do not accept" button. It gives you the exactly same services as the "I accept" does. Does this mean, that now I can just break any rules they stated in that legal jargon :) ?

Re:just hit "I do not accept"

[jukal]

Ohh, actually it does not give you the same services. It just redirects you to the "Make a reservation page". Still, applying the things stated in the Disclaimer makes the whole thing look like a joke.

Re:just hit "I do not accept"

[isorox]

Does this mean, that now I can just break any rules they stated in that legal jargon :) ?

No. To break them on purpose, you need to understand them.

Classic, funny disclaimer...

[antdude]

I found it many years ago:

This product is meant for educational purposes only. Any resemblance to real persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Void where prohibited. Some assembly required. List each check separately by bank number. Batteries not included. Contents may settle during shipment. Use only as directed. No other warranty expressed or implied. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Postage will be paid by addressee. Subject to CAB approval. This is not an offer to sell securities. Apply only to affected area. May be too intense for some viewers. Do not stamp. Use other side for additional listings. For recreational use only. Do not disturb. All models over 18 years of age. If condition persists, consult your physician. No user-serviceable parts inside. Freshest if eaten before date on carton. Subject to change without notice. Times approximate. Simulated picture. No postage necessary if mailed in the United States. Please remain seated until the ride has come to a complete stop. Breaking seal constitutes acceptance of agreement. For off-road use only. As seen on TV. One size fits all. Many suitcases look alike. Contains a substantial amount of non-tobacco ingredients. Colors may fade. We have sent the forms which seem right for you. Slippery when wet. For office use only. Not affiliated with the American Red Cross. Drop in any mailbox. Edited for television. Keep cool; process promptly. Post office will not deliver without postage. List was current at time of printing. Return to sender, no forwarding order on file, unable to forward. Not responsible for direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages resulting from any defect, error or failure to perform. At participating locations only. Not the Beatles. Penalty for private use. See label for sequence. Substantial penalty for early withdrawal. Do not write below this line. Falling rock. Lost ticket pays maximum rate. Your canceled check is your receipt. Add toner. Place stamp here. Avoid contact with skin. Sanitized for your protection. Be sure each item is properly endorsed. Sign here without admitting guilt. Slightly higher west of the Mississippi. Employees and their families are not eligible. Beware of dog. Contestants have been briefed on some questions before the show. Limited time offer, call now to ensure prompt delivery. You must be present to win. No passes accepted for this engagement. No purchase necessary. Processed at location stamped in code at top of carton. Shading within a garment may occur. Use only in a well-ventilated area. Keep away from fire or flames. Replace with same type. Approved for veterans. Booths for two or more. Check here if tax deductible. Some equipment shown is optional. Price does not include taxes. No Canadian coins. Not recommended for children. Prerecorded for this time zone. Reproduction strictly prohibited. No solicitors. No alcohol, dogs or horses. No anchovies unless otherwise specified. Restaurant package, not for resale. List at least two alternate dates. First pull up, then pull down. Call toll free number before digging. Driver does not carry cash. Some of the trademarks mentioned in this product appear for identification purposes only. Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear. Record additional transactions on back of previous stub. Unix is a registered trademark of AT&T. Do not fold, spindle or mutilate. No transfers issued until the bus comes to a complete stop. Package sold by weight, not volume. Your mileage may vary. Known as Hellman's east of the Rockies. Beware of greeks bearing gifts. Beware of gifts bearing greeks. This side up. Don't take any wooden nickels. Don't take candy from strangers. Void where prohibited. Caveat Emptor (Buyer beware) Caveat Vendor (Beware of street people). Donde esta el bano. Beware of DOS. Look both ways before crossing the street. All your base are belong to us. Always wear safety belt. Always wear deodorant. Don't forget to breathe. If you park, don't drink...accidents cause people. This supersedes all previous notices.

This modified disclaimer may not be copied without the expressed written consent of whoever I stole it from.

Re:Classic, funny disclaimer...

[Saint Stephen]

-1 Redundant. Void where prohibited is listed twice.

Re:Classic, funny disclaimer...

[chadmulligan]

Even better coverage of anything whatsoever:

"The worlds most powerful metadisclaimer"

Re:Classic, funny disclaimer...

[hhippo]

Checkout also "The Free Object-Oriented License". Brought to you by the creators of Lzip, the lossy file compression utility... http://lzip.sourceforge.net/license.html

Re:Classic, funny disclaimer...

[dfgdfgdfg]

I think it's from LZip, but lzip.sourceforge.net seems to be down.

Re:Classic, funny disclaimer...

[refactored]

Try my email .sig (cribbed from Sun java sources...), although sometimes my breakfast cereal box gets to me so....

May contain traces of nuts. This email was packed by mass, not volume. Contents may have settled during distribution. This email is not designed or intended for use in on-line control of aircraft, air traffic, aircraft navigation or aircraft communications; or in the design, construction, operation or maintenance of any nuclear facility. Reader represents and warrants that it will not use or redistribute the email for such purposes.

Jesus, enough already!

[tulare]

I mean, come on. Has it dawned on anyone else out there that these butt-covering disclaimers are becoming meaningless? What I'd really like to see would be a court opinion to the general idea of "the agreement was written in Legalese, which is no more readable to the person agreeing to the contract than Latin or Esparanto. Given that the person agreeing to the contract could not reasonably be expected to hire an attorney to understand his or her rights before clicking OK in order to buy airline tickets (or install Windows, ahem), the EULA as given is essentially an unenforcable abrogation of constitutionally protected rights. Therefore, the EULA in its entirety is invalid."

Of course, some fucknut tort lawyers would have to get real jobs, but I promise to lose 10^-30 seconds of sleep over that one.

Yeah, I know, I'm dreaming. Is that my alarm clock?

Re:Jesus, enough already!

[Tony Hoyle]

And the people who would have to argue this in court would be ....... Lawyers!

And on that day Satan will be skating to work...

Re:Jesus, enough already!

[blah-Hipo]

this country is beyond repair.

Re:Jesus, enough already!

[GigsVT]

There is a movement to have all contracts written in plain language. As far as I know there are no uniform laws requiring it yet, but do a Google on "plain language contracts". There are some laws coming up in lending and other limited fields that require all contracts to be in "plain language" or "plain english". This movement is advocated by many consumer groups, and it does seem to be catching on.

Re:Jesus, enough already!

[Swaffs]

Perhaps as a nice first step towards curbing the EULA mania would be to make a law that says that if anything within the EULA is illegal (you must turn over your first born, etc.) then it voids the entire EULA. This should cause companies to be a lot less restrictive, and hopefully a lot less verbose, when writing their EULA's.

Re:Jesus, enough already!

[Dyolf Knip]

make a law that says that if anything within the EULA is illegal (you must turn over your first born, etc.) then it voids the entire EULA

_Very_ nice. That would be "is illegal at the time it was 'signed'" though, right? Probably wouldn't want a future law nullifying vast multitudes of existing agreements.

It also ties nicely into the 'lawyers & politicians as coders' metaphor. They better do their best to get it right the first time or when it 'crashes', they lose a lot of dosh.

No web crawlers?

[riflemann]

Interesting to note from the agreement:

[You shall not] Monitor or copy any Content by using any manual process, or any robot, spider, or other automatic device, without first obtaining American Airlines' prior written consent.

However:

$ wget http://www.aa.com/robots.txt
--10:23:00-- http://www.aa.com:80/robots.txt
=> `robots.txt' Connecting to www.aa.com:80... connected!
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 404 Not found
10:23:01 ERROR 404: Not found.

So they've not got a robots.txt file. Do they expect web crawlers to read and understand this also??

Re:No web crawlers?

[trezor]

They're corporate *bastards*, not sysadmins. You think the webmaster wrote this? :)

The EULA prpbably phorbited you to check for robots.txt as well. Just linking the EULA was, according to the EULA, not allowed for anyone but aa, if I remember correctly.

So... What's the deal? You make it public. And say it's not for public use. Scizofrenic weirdos.

Re:No web crawlers?

[jsac]

[You shall not] Monitor or copy any Content by using any manual process, or any robot, spider, or other automatic device, without first obtaining American Airlines' prior written consent. Forget the part about robots, spiders, or other automatic devices. You shall not Monitor or copy and Content by using any manual process. Yes, that means that you can't even click on a damn link without prior written consent from a lawyer.

But I haven't accepted the agreement yet so

[ninthwave]

American Airlines specifically denies you permission to hyperlink or provide references to the Site, unless you are allowed to do so under a separate written agreement with American Airlines. You are also denied permission to use any trademarked or copyrighted material to provide such hyperlinks or references, unless you are allowed to do so under a separate written agreement with American Airlines. American Airlines bears no responsibility for sites that provide hyperlinks or references to the Site unless those sites are operated by American Airlines.

Is it illegal if I haven't agreed?
What can they do to me
Why do they care if people link to them
What a load of rubbish

Sorry probably a waste of ones and zeroes but not as much as that dribble. The agreement says it is to protect your privacy while using the site but if you read the whole agreement they can do what ever they want with third parties, no recourse to tell you and the agreement can be changed at any time anyway. They aren't protecting privacy at all in that document in fact it looks pretty much like they have already sold their customers down the river and added a clause in the agreement that you can not sue them for anything that results from using the site, like the selling of personal information.
So the agreement should read
We can and will sell your information to third parties.
If you use this site you can not sue us.
It would be an easier read at that.

But the can't hyperlink clause is funny.

Re:But I haven't accepted the agreement yet so

[Servo]

Let's help them sue to have every reference to their website removed from the Internet.

Re:But I haven't accepted the agreement yet so

[ninthwave]

Hmm so emailing them a link to the slashdot article and a huge rant would be a good idea.
Or only good if a gross of us do it.

Re:But I haven't accepted the agreement yet so

[Servo]

Nah, go around and figure out everybody who's linked to their website(s) and alert AA what these hooligans are up to. Its bad for business if everybody knows your website address, ya know.

Re:But I haven't accepted the agreement yet so

[ninthwave]

Well maybe I should point them to the many links in this article. Maybe I should email them specifically about a user called ninthwave who is also talking negatively about the site (sorry the Site) which is also against the agreement. Maybe I should point out that I linked to them (sorry not I but ninthwave) without their written permission. And maybe I should point out the existence of a google cache existing.
Because none of us has accepted their agreement to use the Site (big S but not t because it is not The Site just the Site)

pure BS

[master_p]

Nothing is legal unless backed up by a law signed by the government. So this EULA is pure BS.

Readability

[scot4875]

I especially like how nicely formatted and spaced it is, ensuring optimum readibility.

Block-right text and no paragraph breaks? It almost looks like a Slashdot comment...

--Jeremy

Re:Readability

[khuber]

Hehe. Yes, and thanks for putting it in a tiny scrolling box to make it even more annoying!

-Kevin

I don't see the problem

[pavera]

Granted its a draconian crazy license...
but companies are required to cover their butts, people who own their own companies know this... its obscene the amount of things that companies can be sued for...

At any rate, its not even that bad, ever signed up at Ameritrade? Etrade? any of those places, the agreements you have to read/agree to are thousands of times longer than that...

Anyway, the agreement isn't really that long (I signed an 8 page agreement when I got cable internet access... I've signed many many 4 or 5 page agreements, the lease on my apartment was 6..) so the internet is getting more ecommerce, and with that come obligations on the part of companies, and agreements that the consumers must make... fine.. life goes on.

Holy Bullets Batman!

[coene]

"You agree that you will not Misuse the Site. "Misuse" includes, but is not limited to, using the Site to do any of the following:"

You know the EULA is too long when on a "you will not" clause, the bullets go all the way to the letter S

Re:Holy Bullets Batman!

[GigsVT]

Don't Do What Donny Don't Does: The 10 Do's and 500 Don'ts of American Airlines.

Too bad...

[imag0]

I wanted to bad to clear out the text box and put in "Here at AA, we love our lawyer's cock."

That I would have accepted.

Anecdote...

[shic]

While an undergrad, one course (taught in Prolog) required all the students to take a given program, amend it and provide hardcopy traces of the output after each of the 5 stages to show that the program "still worked." Leaving aside the inherent flaws (which I could argue mean the original program could never "work!") I stumbled upon the documentary requirement placed on students. Two of us produced the first phase of the first part's printed documentation and a projection that a complete answer would cost tens of thousands of pounds in paper and ink and take several years to print even given exclusive use of the university's fastest printers. When challenged, the lecturer (who set this dastardly task) explained that all he really wanted was a 'heavy' submission from each student - in order to dissuade moderators from questioning the grades he deemed appropriate as they would have no desire to wade through a few hundred pages of output before making their case!

The sooner people realise that documentary complexity and volume doesn't gain advantages the better. It would be great to see a shift in opinion about such treatise requiring that the document be taken as a whole - and considered void in it's entirety should it contain anything redundant, unnecessarily convoluted or not legally binding. If this doesn't happen, I can only envisage licenses plummet further towards their own obsolescence.

This is a great resource

[KidSock]

If I ever want to create a license agreement I can just refer to their site. They have everything in there. I can just take the bits an pieces that sound official, change the wording a little, and voila! poor mans EULA.

Re:This is a great resource

[kubrick]

Be careful... I'm sure that must violate some clause in there. :)

Is this legal??? Rather funny!

[lightweave]

I just brwosed throuhg the text and was wondering that they claimed the "Intelectual Property" "right" even on such things like numbers ("PINS"). Really funny that one. Another thing that I nocticed. In the agreement you agree that you are over 18 and have the right to enter such an agreement. The nice thing about this. What happens if you are below 18 or even 13 and still sign it and do some things on it. At least here in Germany such a binding is void and the company that accepted it has all the disadvantages of it. It can't even go to the parents for refunds (or whatever the term is) unless they can really show that the parents approved of it.

Google Mirror

[Nick Harkin]

Google Mirror

and if you ever do book, just click, i agree, it take you to the same place. ????

Slashdotting illegal!

[infolib]

"Misuse" includes, but is not limited to, using the Site to do any of the following:
...

O. Take any action that will or could impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our site infrastructure.
Timothy, take down that link!

Editors....do your job!

[harlows_monkeys]

I went to the American Airline site, and the story is simply wrong. You can use the site just fine, without ever seeing that agreement. You only see the agreement when you try to sign up for their frequent flyer program.

There is nothing at all newsworthy here, for nerds, or anyone else. Come on, editors...don't accept junk like this.

Re:Editors....do your job!

[ninthwave]

Yes but the agreement states that it is for the Site completely

"Introduction

Thank you for visiting the American Airlines web site titled "aa.com" (the "Site"). In return for gaining access to the Site and using it, you agree to be bound by the following Agreement without limitation or qualification, so please carefully review this Agreement before proceeding. If you do not intend to be legally bound by these terms and conditions, do not access and use the Site. "

I think they are trying to have a Data Protection Privacy agreement and hired a software lawyer who confused the whole thing and created a useless piece of dribble drivel.

A pet peeve of mine...

[George Walker Bush]

Even worse than long legalese disclaimers/EULAs is when web sites put them in a @#$@#$@# text field widget!

Text fields are intended for USER INPUT, not for the purposes of displaying text. Is there a reason why they couldn't have just put the text as regular HTML text on the page?

Is it to inconvenience users by forcing them to click frequently, and thus discouraging them even more from reading it?

Re:A pet peeve of mine...

[TheSunborn]

They do it to get the scrollbar for the text, so the user can click the "I Agree" button widtout having to scroll. Stupid maybe, but atleast they do have a reason.

Martin Tilsted

Nothing to see; move along please.

[Godwin O'Hitler]

Sorry, but as a translator I have had quite a few major web sites to translate and this EULA (read "charter" in most other languages) is neither shorter nor longer in any significant way than most others I've seen. For obvious reasons, I'm not going to say what these other sites are (professional ethics...), but I will say that since words are my billing units, meaning I have to count them every time, I know what I'm talking about. 3000 to 4000 words is commonplace -- and believe me, translating them is boring!

That's plain wrong

[lightweave]

If I put up my personal website anybod can access it who finds it even without any link to it.
If I tell you the URL of my website you can type it in and access the pages. No link involved. Of course for a company it is much better to get as many links as possible pointing to their site, because it is inevitable that some yousers will click it and some of them will even buy.
There are users at ebay who will even bid on used toilet paper so it is plain stupid to not allow any links. Even if you could enforce this.

Slashdot article is in violation !

[Natal VC]

> However even mentioning this is probably in violation of the text.

Yep:

"You agree that you will not Misuse the Site. "Misuse" includes, but is not limited to, using the Site to do any of the following:

[..]

O. Take any action that will or could impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our site infrastructure."

- N.

Muahahahaha!

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess it doesn't even really matter...I clicked on the "I do NOT accept" button and still got on the site.

Pay lawyers $100,000 to write a perfect agreement but pay a web master only $200 and the whole things goes to hell. :)

hook

You can't violate the text

[noz]

"...even mentioning this is probably in violation of the text."

You can't violate the EULA if you don't accept it. If you don't accept it, I guess you can't fly American Air!

Re:Hide the Real Stuff-EULAS

[Anonymous Coward]

"The last paragraph, however, is the greatest laugh-inducer:

If any provision of this Agreement is found to be invalid or unenforceable, then the invalid or unenforceable provision will be stricken from this Agreement without affecting the validity or enforceability of any other provision.

So, they could essentially put "You must name your first child after American Airlines", have it be struck down as idiotic, but the rest of the agreement still stands...nice :)"

You must get a lot of laughs then, because I've seen that clause in a LOT of online and offline agreements. Basically if the law says a particular clause doesn't hold up in court the rest isn't invalid. IANAL of course so I can't say how legal that position is.

This isn't a disclaimer about using their site...

[furchin]

This deals with enrolling in the AAdvantage program. You can still buy a ticket from them, you just can't get the frequent flier miles :)

As long as this?

[mitsuhama]

The Commonwealth Bank Of Australia Conditions for Netbank.

Re:As long as this?

[lightweave]

Actually this is not an EULA it rather is a FAQ. If you read the subjectlines of the paragraphs you see that this is not about binding a customer, rather it is to explain what happens in certain circumstances. I'd say that this is actually a good document.

The funniest part

[sanermind]

...is that the URL of the webpage with the disclaimer is:

...InstantEnrollment.jhtml

while it goes on to state:

please review and accept the following terms and conditions before continuing on AA.com.

Instant, uh-huh...

here's the kicker.

[jericho4.0]

The scariest part of this EULA?

You agree that Texas law governs this Agreement's interpretation

It doesn't matter if you're a minor, retarded, or insane. We'll get you.

Re:here's the kicker.

[Servo]

That is actually one of the few things that makes sense. The company is based out of Texas, so they are going by local law.

It protects them from having a seperate agreement for every locality that might access and use the site. Now, wether or not Texas version of law is any better or worse on the matter, thats up for debate.

This is one of those large gray areas that has arrisen because of the internet. You have a company that is in Location A, and is going by 1 set of laws, but you are in Location B, which has a set of conflicting laws. Which apply?

Sometimes it would appear really easy to answer. Say there is a website out there with pictures of naked 14 year olds. It is hosted in a country which has a low age of consent that allows such content. Now someone from the US goes and views those pictures. Clearly the US law apply's to the person doing the viewing, and that person is acting in an illegal manor.

The problem I see in their statement about using Texas Law is that American Airlines does business in many municipalities. But perhaps that is another reason why they put that clause in there.

Re:here's the kicker.

[Brian See]

Joking about messing with Texas aside, it could be a lot worse.

I mean, how about a click-through contract that required you to file any and all claims in say, the U.S. District Court for the Marianas Islands? Just another adhesive clause...

Re:here's the kicker.

[Servo]

Speaking of jokes...
They also say "Everything's bigger in Texas".

Even contracts. :)

Priorities

[Andy Smith]

Shame their 9/11 security wasn't as tight as their web site T's and C's.

So isn't it traditional

[Russellkhan]

...for someone to post the full text of the article in case the site gets slashdotted or people don't have the energy to click the link or something like that?

I mean, this EULA is exciting stuff, nobody wants to miss a chance to read it.

Russ

Its time to deny the denial

[jopet]

I think it is time to deny the denial for hyperlinking to somebodys site. I am sick and tired of seeing "agreements" that deny everyone the right to do what the WWW is designed for: hyperlinking. There should be a law that disallows such agreements or makes them void. If they dont want links: fuck them, they are free to remove their site from the WWW and they are free to restrict access by passwords etc. If the have a freely accessible website on their server it is braindead to think you could prevent linking to it.

EULA

[locarecords.com]

Unfortunately there is going to be a whole plethora of court cases regarding EULA before their legality and usage becomes accepted and regulated. In the meantime they are steadily going to get more and more over the top to try to cover themselves for any and every eventuality. Rather than draw up a code of practice, companies are happier to try to restrict more and more of their customers' rights. Not good business practice in the long run...

Slowly but surely the lawyers are moving in on the Internet....

Silly EULA

[Andy Smith]

If it's on-topic to talk about silly EULA's and not just long ones then the silliest clause I've ever seen was for iBill's Commerce Management Interface. It's changed now but at the end of the disclaimer it used to say that you agreed to be bound by the terms and conditions if you either (a) click agree or (b) "close this browser window".

Re:Silly EULA

[program21]

What if you were to kill/terminate the browser process? You didn't close the window, you terminated the app, and the OS closed the window. Could your copy of Windows then be bound to the agreement?

Does anyone else find it ironic... (ot)

[Ari Rahikkala]

... that the amount of words, characters and paragraphs in this beast of a document might well have been counted by flushing it down (through wc)?

Re:"instant enrollment"

[archeopterix]

ha ha the URL contains "InstantEnrollment.jhtml".. that's IRONY for you!

Hm... this brings up an interesting possibility. URL EULAs!
http://shadycorp.com /ByClickingHereYouAgreeToFulfillOurEveryWish/ YouSucker.html

By the way, by reading this post you agree to mod it up as Insightful.

Another classic Disclaimer

[Graabein]

Disclaimer: Any resemblance between the above views
and those of my employer, my terminal, or the view out
my window are purely coincidental. Any resemblance
between the above and my own views is non-deterministic.
The question of the existence of views in the absence
of anyone to hold them is left as an exercise for the
reader. The question of the existence of the reader
is left as an exercise for the second god coefficient.
(A discussion of non-orthogonal, non-integral polytheism
is beyond the scope of this article.)

Apologies to whoever I stole it from.

So who are the nominators?

[rsidd]

"American Airlines nominated..." By whom, given that there are no links? The "anonymous reader"? If so, why is it news? Yes, it's interesting that their agreement is so long, but who knows, maybe there are longer ones out there.

Observation

[quintessent]

The more bloated the agreement is, the more Slashdotters will want to see how ridiculous it is.

So, from (number of people) * (size of agreement), they have an O(n^2) bandwidth cost to their site.

Mailorder privacy

[newfoundry]

[from their privacy policy...] "Protecting your privacy. Your privacy is important to us... " [unless you've read the eula...] "American Airlines will not treat as confidential any communications you send to us by electronic mail or otherwise. American Airlines has no obligation to refrain from publishing, reproducing, or otherwise using your communications in any way and for any purpose." [and if you want to opt out you'll need a stamp and a lot of patience...] "While we believe this disclosure of your information will result in opportunities that may be of interest to you, you have the right to tell us not to give your information to any third party. If you want American to keep all of your information confidential and not share it with any third party, please mail your written request to American Airlines AAdvantage Program; P.O.Box 619688; DFW Airport, Texas 75261-9688. Your request must include your name, AAdvantage number, mailing address and must be signed. Please allow six weeks to process your request. "

Airmail, anyone?

A longer one than AA

[slimshaney]

Found this one for nokia's Activ Server 2.1 server emulatory, weighting in at 24,000 characters... http://www.forum.nokia.com/files/nds_disclaimer/1, 1183,1723,00.html

We are all going to jail...

[eastshores]

" O. Take any action that will or could impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our site infrastructure." :( I'm pretty sure the /.'ing qaulifies :X

Verisign has them beat...

[nachoboy]

...by a long shot. Check out their service agreement. A whopping 237 paragraphs, 31,999 words, and 202,556 characters.

Re:Verisign has them beat...

[Scarblac]

Verisign has them beat by a long shot.

Yeah, but that's a service agreement. Somehow I think this stuff is much more absurd as a contract you have to accept before they allow you to use their #^#$@#%^ webpage . And then if you refuse, they allow you to use their webpage.

Re:Verisign has them beat...

[lightweave]

Actually this is a service agreement and not a EULA that allows you to access their website. I would expect from such a contract to be more lengthy then a simple EULA. I wrote such a contract myself and it also got rather long because you should cover all szenarious you possibly encounter with your customers. This way you don't have to go to court and can settle many things more easily.

On the other hand I find this paragraph from VeriSign rather refreshing: --
2. Use of Information. You acknowledge and agree that we may (but are not obligated to) collect, store, use and/or publish information regarding, and data related to, your VeriSign Web Site, including, but not limited to, your domain name, URL and traffic counts. Possible uses of such information include, but are not limited to, marketing, the development and distribution of lists concerning traffic patterns of (or visits to) web sites and VeriSign member web sites and for other general commercial purposes. Use of any personally identifiable information will be in accordance with VeriSign's Privacy Policy.
--
So basically they say that they are allowed to monitor all your traffic and sell them to whoever they chose. Nice one. The best is, that they use their own privacy policy which is subject to changes. So agreeing to this you have no privacy at all. At the least you are at the mercy of VeriSign.

Why this story made it to /.

[Nept]

cause it's AA. and we know RIAA and MPAA are evil, so AA must be the root of all evil

You agree that you can agree with the agreement

[Anarchofascist]

I only read as far as "By using the Site, you represent and warrant that you are 18 years of age or older and possess the legal right and ability to enter into this Agreement..." before my brain exploded and I had to go out the back and install a spare.

So, am I to understand that by using the site I agree that I am legally allowed to agree to this agreement? <fx src="explode.wav" /> bugger there goes another one.

The lawyers who wrote this crap are clearly a waste of valuable oxygen, water, energy and trace elements.

DDoSing aa.com?

[trezor]

Does DDoSing their site violate their EULA? (-:
No really. With a *strict* EULA like that, wich no person with any sense at all would ever agree to, it really can't be accounted for as wasting their bandwidth or resources. More like saving potential customers the time it takes to read crap like this.

toilet paper printer?

[httpamphibio.us]

Unless you have some magic printer-ready toilet paper the results of that could be pretty ghastly.

Re:toilet paper printer?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're probably not old enough to have used the wax paper the Europeans supplied in the '70s. It's why they like bidets so much...
me

Re:toilet paper printer?

[whereiswaldo]

Try MSN Hotmail, too. Look for the _linked_ EULA's nested inside the main EULA.

Run! /. has violated the agreement

[migstradamus]

" O. Take any action that will or could impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our site infrastructure."

Easy way to read EULAs...

[FyRE666]

Just search the text for "your first born", "RIAA" or "pass your email address on to third parties". If no matches, it's probably alright...

Interesting read

[Dexter's Laboratory]

Somewhere in the middle, you start to see interesting things included in the text. In the 87th paragraph there is a rather delicious sushi recipe, in the 90th paragraph, a Seinfeld quote, and in the 92nd, it said "Have you read this far, I'll buy you a Big Mac". Not many people have noticed this because it's quite the enormous mass of text.

Re:Interesting read

[Charles Dodgeson]

in the 92nd, it said "Have you read this far, I'll buy you a Big Mac".

I've seen a draft of a PhD thesis that say in one of the later chapters, "If you've read this far, you've read further than my supervisor."

Why must...

[Soukyan]

everything be a conspiracy to people? It's a legal contract for goodness sake. A long one albeit, but identical to almost every other EULA out there. Hell, it's a combination of all EULA's!

I refused to sign...

[wbean]

I have lots of miles on AA and I refuse to sign that disclaimer. As a result I have to use their call center to get at my AA Advantage account. I've made several complaints about the language in the disclaimer, including a letter to the Chairman. All of them have been shrugged off without a substantive reply. My next step is going to be to concentrate on building up miles on another airline. Signing that agreement is simply not an option.

Doesn't Matter

[RadioactivePorpoise]

I clicked on 'I do not agree' and it let me into the site anyways

Press "Don't accept" and you see the site anyway

[xlation]

I wonder why they let you in without accepting.
Will they try and force you to sign to book a ticket?

Am I legally bound by this

[oz1cz]

Can I be legally bound by an agreement I haven't signed? Does simply clicking on an "I accept" button amount to a legal obligation?

Isn't this typically american?

[Anonymous MadCoe]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I do feel that especially american companies have disclaimers that are this ridiculous, somehow the law in many other countries works better (at least allows for shorter disclaimers)...

'Browser Compatibility'

[rm -f DMCA]

This is worth a good laugh...

How do I determine which browser I am using?
Windows
From your browser, go to the Help menu and choose "About...." A screen will appear showing which browser and version you are using.

Re:'Browser Compatibility'

[nickclarke]

From the same page: Macintosh AA.com requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher, or other compatible browsers that support frames, Javascript, cookies and Secure Sockets Layer protocol (SSL). At this time, Netscape browsers are not supported. Using older browsers, non-compatible browsers or disabling browser features, such as Javascript, cookies and SSL, may reduce site functionality.......From your browser, go to the Apple menu. Choose either "About Netscape" or "About Internet Explorer." A screen will appear showing which version you are using. (emphasis mine). Hmmmmm....

See what happens when you refuse to accept it

[Anonymous Coward]

I clicked on the "I do not accept" button and it took me right to a page to book reservations or check the status of my frequent flyer miles (I have none with AA). Many web sites stop you dead in your tracks for refusing a EULA, but apparently, American is more concerned with getting your paid business than your behavior. I guess their lawyers have a lot of time on their hands.

Re:Run! /. has violated the agreement

[lightweave]

1. Posting this on a newsnetwork could surely be no violation covered by this "EULA". The intent is missing. I guess that a court should see this as well, because the intent of the poster is not to generate a massive load on the server, this is only a side effect of posting it here. The same would be true if a good ad campaign were running and people start to look at the website. But US laws and courts are somewhat twisted anyway so they might pull it through nevertheless.
2. If the servers can't take the small amount of a few slashhdotters how will they ever make some business? I expect that a server should handle quite some amount of hits every day from what only a small proportion will result in actual business. How many customers do they expect if they can't handle a few thousand hits?

PayPal TOS Much Longer

[Bob9113]

The PayPal Agreement is 373 paragraphs, 19,127 words, 119,761 characters.

Re:PayPal TOS Much Longer

[jonnythan]

That's a TOS, not EULA. Look over the Paypal TOS and it's vastly different. It covers everything from requirements to be a Paypal store to all the details of recieving a payment.

I don't have any mod points, but

[wheany]

does "Mod parent up! +1, Insightful" count?

The Answer

[Angram]

Here you go, folks, the answer to all of your EULA problems, just click on the next block of text.

By clicking anywhere on this text, you agree to retain your rights, and all provisions of any EULA in conflict with the end user will be invalidated.

Now you can do whatever you damn well please, since their EULA doesn't have 'dominance' over mine, and they can't complain that I've invalidated theirs, since they clearly state:

"If any provision of this Agreement is found to be invalid or unenforceable, then the invalid or unenforceable provision will be stricken from this Agreement without affecting the validity or enforceability of any other provision."

How refreshing...

[Pig Hogger]

How refreshing it is to see a link that still responds, even when slashdotted...

Comma and 'or'

[Cheese Cracker]

The most common word in the EULA is 'or'. (There were more commas, but I don't count that as a word)
'Or' was used 186 times (4.86% of all words and special characters (eg. punctuation, comma)) in their
EULA. Comma was used 348 times. (8.53%)

So for all you EULA writers out there... use a lot of 'or' and commas in the text... just to make sure you
can protect your site against the evil customers and other evil visitors.

The funny thing is...

[Art_Vandelai]

click on I DO NOT ACCEPT. It appears to be a faster way into the AA.COM site anyways - don't even have to register.

Frequent Fliers, Not Whole Website.

[mikedaisey]

Everybody does know that this is an enduser agreement for their frequent flier program, and not for their website, right?

It's clearly marked there, and if you click on "I Do Not Agree" you are taken to the main page of their website to place your order--no fuss, no muss.

I'm not arguing that some of their terms aren't ridiculous--but this agreement's length is not to block people from the main site, but probably to keep people from abusing their frequent flier program.

Did everyone just tear into the legalese immediately, w/o reading anything else?

Texas nothing to do with laws

[kbs]

American Airlines is based in Dallas/Ft.Worth (otherwise known as Tarrant County)... I seriously doubt it has anything to do with selective state laws. Dallas/Ft.Worth happens to be a rather large hub for them, so it makes sense for them to want laws there to be enforced since they know those best.

Gah, people and their conspiracy theories...

Try not accepting.

[JetScootr]

I clicked "I do not accept" and it appears to have let me in anyway. Maybe the EULA is optional?

Re:Try not accepting.

[magerquark.de]

Me too. Really funny :-)

Probably they put all their efforts into the content of the EULA and have no ressources left to implement the button handlers.

No it doesnt't II

[gr0nd]

I'll bet they argue that 'defend' means 'you pay our legal bills if you sue us'.

Overzealous enforcement

[Nonac]

They tried to hold me to the terms of this agreement even though I never saw it or agreed to it.

I was selling Kellogg's AAdvantage coupons that I had cut off cereal boxes on ebay. Somebody from American sent me a threatening letter telling me I was in violation of the terms of use of the AAdvantage program. They also sent a letter to my bidders who backed out of the auction on threat of having their AAdvantage accounts terminated.

When I responded to their original email asking how they can enforce a penalty against me if I never signed up for AAdvantage, they never responded.

Since then, I have continued to sell AAdvantage coupons on ebay in private auctions so American Airlines can't hassle my buyers.

The Web's Shortest Disclaimer

[hyoo]

You must be over 18.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff-EULAS

[cwernli]

IANAL too, but I've seen this kind of thing happen in court (was in Europe though), and it held.

What freaks me out is the possibility that this very clause is deemed illegal by a court - now that's where it gets really interesting :)

Re:Texas Law

[DancingSword]

No law prevents a business to have a distributed corporate hierarchy across state lines.

Actually, I read about one big ERP ( IIRC ) company having to choose some specific place as their corporate HQ -- they'd run a hierarchy-on-demand system with no HQ, but that wasn't acceptable to the IRS.

'read that in "Corps Business: the 30 Management Principles of the US Marines" ( David H Freedman, and it's an excellent book )

Re:Hide the Real Stuff-EULAS

[yohaas]

This is a standard severability statement. You'll find it in every contract. Basically, just because one part is found to be invalid, it doens't invalidate the whole contract - and really, why should it.

Snifff...

[Pig Hogger]

They finally got beaten... :( :( :( :(

their own fault!

[freaker_TuC]

... Their own fault, if they make their EULA smaller in size they would not have this much load!

And if you click 'I do not accept'...

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you click 'I do not accept', it still directs you to their Reservation page. I have... reservations aboot that.

+1 Funny

[schlach]

LOL. That's a great idea. I must be the one guy without mod points, but have an imaginary +1 on me.

When I recently had to negotiate a clause in my contract, I didn't do it in perl, but I did find it necessary to break the complex clause into subclauses inside parantheses, linked together with AND and OR operators, so that I could be sure the recruiter knew what he was passing back and forth between myself and the lawyers...

I wish I would have thought to have written it somewhat obscurely... seems like, if you can make them agree to it, you're playing their game ; )

Re:Hide the Real Stuff-EULAS

[Galvatron]

Why should it? Because those clauses are what produce these absurdly long "agreements" that no one ever reads. If the invalidation of a single clause invalidated the contract, then companies would have to be careful to only put things in that were really important to them, and which were likely to hold up in court. The result would be much shorter agreements, and fewer attempts to deprive consumers of their rights.

You know, the more I think about this, the more I like it. Economic theory states that the capitalist system breaks down if there is asymmetry of information. For example, if a car dealer knows he's selling you a lemon, which is why we have anti-fraud laws and the like. Lawyers create an asymmetry of information too, though, because a corporation can afford to have lawyers look at every document they draft or sign, but the average citizen cannot. Often the result is the creation of the onerous "agreements" which essentially state, if you'll pardon the old joke, "all your base are belong to us." People agree anyway, because they don't have the time or ability to check other companies to compare agreements, and see which is the least restrictive. So, if this reduced the ability of corporations to abuse this superior information, I think it'd be great.

EULA too long: GO ELSEWHERE

[wowbagger]

It would be one thing were this EULA on, say, www.irs.gov and that were the ONLY way to file your taxes, but...

This is on AAvantage, one of many ways to book airline flights online.

If you DON'T like the EULA, screw'em! Go elsewhere. Find one of the 1E100 other travel agents online, and use them.

Also, send a polite but firm letter (NOT EMAIL - real dead trees and toner!) to American Airlines, telling them WHY you are taking your purchase to Marges_travel.com.

IF AA sees that this EULA costs them more than it saves them, THEN (they will change it OR they will go out of business).

Shorter EULA

[Midnight Thunder]

Since all EULAs pretty much has the same goal in mind, here is a simpler version:

In purchasing, pirating or using this product you have lost all your rights. All your bases belong to us.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff-EULAS

[Transient0]

> What freaks me out is the possibility that
> this very clause is deemed illegal by a court
> - now that's where it gets really interesting

nice try at a Hofstadter-style self-reference loop. In this case however, if that clause is deemed illegal, the contract would be invalidated since the only thing preventing it's invalidation had been itself invalidated.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff-EULAS

[Pxtl]

IANANAL (I am not anal) but I'm pretty sure it already invalidates a contract to include illegal requirements. All that remains to do is declare that the statement "Illegal parts of this contract are removed" illegal, and the whole thing collapses.

And yes, I agree about the asymmetry of information destroying the free market. That, along with the lack of consideration of those born into a disadvantaged family by no fault of their own, is why I am *not* a libertarian. The libertarian system would require a more informed consumer than is feasible, particularly when information would be more easily concealed with the suggested greater freedom.

Simple solution

[jesser]

Just type this URL into your address bar while viewing the disclaimer:
javascript:for (i=0; t=document.getElementsByTagName ("textarea")[i]; ++i) void(t.readOnly=false)

Then you can delete all the text, change all the vowels to o's, or do whatever you do with annoying contracts in real life.

You can even keep this URL as a "bookmarklet" on your personal toolbar and click it whenever you need to edit a read-only textarea.

Re:Simple solution

[Tom in Boston]

I'm able to edit the agreement as-is in Netscape 4.79. I added some things about making the peanuts easier to open, deleted the part about keeping my seatbelt on while browsing the site, then clicked Agree.

Even "references" are prohibited

[Fastolfe]

The license not only prohibits hyperlinks to the site, but references of any kind to the site. So yah, they are breaking the law. :)

Re:Even "references" are prohibited

[Performer Guy]

I don't care what they choose to write, that has no bearing on my obligations. I can say on my web site that you owe me a million bucks. Would you pay up? Go on say "yah".

Re:Even "references" are prohibited

[Fastolfe]

No, of course not.

But if you created a similar legal document on your web site that users had to click through to get to your site's content, and that agreement says that by clicking through, they owe you a million dollars, you have just as much of a right to enforce that as the airline does in this case.

Perhaps a test case like this is what we really need to get these kinds of things nullified.

181 paragraphs, 3482 words, 22411 characters...

[Rorschach1]

...and nobody understood a word that it said, but we all had fun filling out forms and playing with the penciles on the bench there...

Core dump

[duck_prime]

Unless you have some magic printer-ready toilet paper the results of that could be pretty ghastly.

I guess you'll just have to flush cache after you invoke the natural log generator function.

Check out this rare bit of sanity

[NecrosisLabs]

This is a breath of fresh air. I wish more sites would emulate this...

Comb vs. PayPal

[Animats]

Someone else mentioned Comb vs. PayPal in passing. That's a very important case, because it directly addresses how far a click-wrap agreement can go. It's not over yet, but in a ruling on an initial motion, a Federal District Court ruled that PayPal's agreement was a contract of adhesion and an unreasonable one. Requiring commercial arbitration in Santa Clara, California and prohibiting class actions was ruled to be unconscionable. PayPal is fighting this.

A longer agreement...

[Gavin Scott]

The Yahoo Instant Messenger agreement is presented to you in a 2-inch-square window, with no option to print the agreement. If you copy the text out, you find that the agreement is 14 pages long, 7,219 words, 44,847 characters in length. Reading this agreement in the original window would require about 1,000 page-down clicks and probably take the average person a significant fraction of an hour to complete (and would not be a pleasant experience).

How can this be enforcable?

G.

Shame on you..

[lionchild]

American Airlines specifically denies you permission to hyperlink or provide references to the Site, unless you are allowed to do so under a separate written agreement with American Airlines. You are also denied permission to use any trademarked or copyrighted material to provide such hyperlinks or references, unless you are allowed to do so under a separate written agreement with American Airlines. American Airlines bears no responsibility for sites that provide hyperlinks or references to the Site unless those sites are operated by American Airlines.

Breaking copyright law! Unless, of course...you didn't click on the ACCEPT link. Hmmm.....

They forgot one

[nd]

Offer valid in 49 states. Sorry, Tennessee.

Ooops...

[petis]

"You agree that you will not Misuse the Site. "Misuse" includes, but is not limited to, using the Site to do any of the following:"

... (snip) ...

" O. Take any action that will or could impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our site infrastructure."

I wonder if posting the link on slashdot is in violation of this paragraph.. :-)

Re:Hide the Real Stuff-EULAS

[Fulcrum of Evil]

You must get a lot of laughs then, because I've seen that clause in a LOT of online and offline agreements.

That's because it's a standard severability clause. So far as I know, it should be in all contracts.

Airline security!

[Beansack]

I didn't accept and they let me through. So much for Airline security!

If this is the longest...

[sukotto]

I wonder what the shortest, legally enforcible disclamer is.
(regardless of how enforcible this one actually is of course)

slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting this on slashdot probably violates this clause

O. Take any action that will or could impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our site infrastructure.

There's more

[Teun]

Other terms

This Agreement constitutes the entire agreement governing your access to, dealings with, and use of the Site. Of course, separate agreements may attach to any goods, products, or services you obtain, purchase, or use from the Site.

Because the main body did not have enough space?

Please Clarify

[warp1]

The tale of the tape includes: 181 paragraphs; 3482 words; and 22411 characters. However even mentioning this is probably in violation of the text.

If you refering to the paragraphs, words, and characters or is it the entire agreement?

I get two different pages

[monk]

and both load fast. So much for "The Slashdot Effect"

I wrote them about this...

[Anonymous Coward]

I complained to the aa.com webmaster when they first introduced this silliness. (It was kind of fun to quote the entire agreement in my e-mail.) Their response:

Subject: Re: AAdvantage Account Access T&C
Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 22:38:40 -0500
From: AA Webmaster
To: me

Hello Eric,

Thank you for your comments.

Due to the overwhelming response to the new AA.com, our volume of e-mail has increased and we apologize for the delay in responding to your message.

We appreciate the time you have taken to express your opinion regarding the AA.com Terms & Conditions. It is clear that you feel strongly about this policy. Your message has been sent to AA.com management for further consideration.

We seriously consider all of our customers comments as we prepare future improvements and enhancements to our site.

Sincerely,
Fidelma Early
AA.com Web Services

Original Message Follows:

Hi,

I just visited www.aa.com in an attempt to check my AAdvantage account balance. Upon logging in, I was asked to accept some new terms and
conditions, pasted in below.

This legal document is _9_ pages long. I have neither the desire nor the time to read and understand all this legal crap just to find out how many miles I have in my account. The damn thing is longer than my apartment lease!

For example: "For use of certain services, we may provide you with a pass code. This pass code is proprietary to and the property of American Airlines." Does this mean I can't use the same password for my OnePass or Mileage Plus accounts? Even better, you reserve the right to publish, reproduce, or otherwise use my password in any way and for any purpose!

Consequently, I did not accept the T&C, and, unless there is some way I can access my AAdvantage account online without signing away my soul to AA in some one-sided, humongous tome of legalese, I'll probably lose all interest in maintaining and adding to my frequent flyer account. As far as I know, OnePass and Mileage Plus do not have such obnoxious T&C for their program websites.

What's the deal?

Worried,

Eric

Re:Hide the Real Stuff-EULAS

[BoneFlower]

"You must get a lot of laughs then, because I've seen that clause in a LOT of online and offline agreements. Basically if the law says a particular clause doesn't hold up in court the rest isn't invalid. IANAL of course so I can't say how legal that position is."

I'd bet it is legal. The US Governments non disclosure agreement for vieing classified material-Valid for 50 years for normal stuff, 70 for SCI(super sensitive information with sources detailed)- has the same clause. I doubt the CIA which developed the agreement would have put that in there if it wouldn't actually help.

Wow.. an error off the bat.

[mindstrm]

Thank you for visiting the American Airlines web site titled "aa.com" (the "Site").

Well, I didn't visit 'aa.com' . I most definatley visited 'www.aa.com'... so right off the bat we have a bad contract.

Not a problem...

[AyeRoxor!]

I hit "I do not accept" and it walked me right through. Maybe they should spend the money on programmers instead of fucking skunk lawyers.

Re:Hide the Real Stuff-EULAS

[Galvatron]

We're drifting pretty far offtopic here, but how is being born into a disadvantaged family any different than being born stupid and lazy? Genetics and environmental factors in infancy certainly aren't the person's "fault" any more than his family's income.

Have you guys ever read disclamers/EULA's before?

[xintegerx]

Have ANY slashdot readers read any disclaimers/agreements until now? The novelty is that this disclaimer is EXTREMELY LONG, not that the content is unusual.

All web site disclaimers say the company can change the text as they please (but some say without notification/notice and some say they will notify you by 30 days.)

All agreements say if one part is invalid, the rest is still valid.

All agreements say you are responsible for taxes and anything that happens to you from using their services.

Funny disclaimers

[Omniscient Ferret]

The Illegal Art Collection has a EULA including:

Look, when this website goes all crazy and destroys your computer, kills your pet, sleeps with your significant other, digs up all your old poetry and laughs and laughs, then calls up your friends and reads them all those really embarrassing parts out of your journal, like when you said you were "destined for beauty" or some shit like that, we make no guarantees and will simply join with everyone and laugh at your sorry ass, because damn, there's no freaking warranty here. Get it? No warranty. None. At all.

AA EULA

[sotweed]

American first put this up in May. They sent me some e-mail suggesting I update my preferences at the site, but it turned out primarily to be a ploy to get me to agree to the new agreement. I refused, and wrote to them and told them they were insane to expect people to (a) read (b) understand (c) care and (d) agree to a license which when printed, as I recall, is 14 or 15 pages of fairly small print, and which as people have noted here gives them everything and the user nothing. Here's their helpful answer. I still haven't agreed to it, or flown AA since (and I'm AAdvantage Gold). Note the nonsense about how it's all to protect their user's privacy.

We regret your objections to the Terms and Conditions associated
with the use of AA.com. When we launched our new site, we
strengthened our Terms and Conditions to ensure the protection of
our customers' privacy. When using our site, your privacy is very
important to us.

The new verbiage contained in the agreement is certainly not meant
to alarm our customers or dissuade anyone from using our site. The
simple issue of securing our customers' interest and privacy
effectuated the enhancement of our Terms and Conditions on AA.com.
However, we are concerned by your apprehension and have forwarded
your comments to our managers at AA.com for review.

We will continue to make every effort to ensure that our customers
receive a convenient, personalized Web experience on AA.com. Thank
you for contacting us.

Re:AA EULA

[lightweave]

I bet that the customer privacy is very important to them. After all they make a lot of money with it.
[HINT] They never said they will honour your privacy, only that it is important for them, which is obviously true. :)

Not Too Long

[ReadParse]

It didn't take me long to find longer T&Cs. I just went to Google and searched for "Terms and Conditions", which of course is not going to find those agreements that are called by a different name.

Anyway, the very first one I found was longer than American Airlines', and the second was WAY longer.

1) ICQ: 31,969 characters
2) Lycos 88,220 characters (dude!)

Anyway, here's a summary of about five minutes worth of work. I started to get sick to my stomach and quit after that:

This is `wc -c` output:

6991 tucows.txt
11292 dell.txt
11635 att.txt
13467 ge.txt
22585 american_airlines.txt
31969 icq.txt
88220 lycos.txt

Still an improvement...

[thedji]

"A user may read the paraphrased EULA, then perform an action with the software not specifically outlined in that paraphrased form"

As opposed to the current situation, where they don't read any of it and just click "I Agree"?

I can't speak for the rest of the horde, but I do.

[cicadia]

All web site disclaimers say the company can change the text as they please (but some say without notification/notice and some say they will notify you by 30 days.)

Yes.

All agreements say if one part is invalid, the rest is still valid.

Yes.

All agreements say you are responsible for taxes and anything that happens to you from using their services.

Yes.

Each of your points is correct (for sufficiently loose interpretations of the word 'all').

I'm not really sure what points of mine you're trying to respond to here -- what I'm trying to point out here is that this agreement appears to explicitly say: "By clicking here now, you agree to be bound in the future by whatever we choose to write in this space, forever." And it does appear to be forever, too -- I couldn't find a clause in the agreement which explains how you could get yourself out of this agreement if they changed the terms against your liking.

I do tend to read these agreements, or at least skim them, when they are important to me, and I've never encountered language like that before.

If you still insist that such wording is standard in online service usage agreements, perhaps you could provide a link or two.

I Do Not Accept

[bazra]

But it still let me into the site....

Charles Schwab also has a long one...

[GojiraDeMonstah]

wait. That came out wrong.

EULA and arbitration

[SeanAhern]

Looking through that particular ruling, it only rules on the particular matter of binding arbitration in Santa Clara county. It's a fairly involved ruling, and does set the precident that a EULA can be considered an "inconscionable" (sp?) contract, rendering some sections unenforcable.

At the core, the ruling says that EULAs are like any other contract, and fall under standard contract law. There are rules that contracts have to abide by (for instance, it cannot be wholly one-sided; both parties must benefit).

With all that said, IANAL.

readable perl

[SeanAhern]

...programmers should submit all legal correspondence in ... Perl...

If we did that, it would just as unreadable as the legalese itself! :-)

Cache

[Hairy Dude]

The law expressly prohibits any modification, redistribution, or reproduction of the software, and such actions could result in severe civil and criminal penalties.

I have a copy of your home page in my web cache. So sue me.

database of website EUAs and software EULAs?

[wessman]

Is there a comprehensive website that maintains a database of website EUAs and software EULAs ... now that would be a fun read! Add some discussion boards to each item, and that sounds like a damn good website!

The best part of this EULA

[two_socks]

When I clicked "I do not accept", it plunked me right into the site, so I can check my miles, book tickets, etc.