Hiding Your Choices And Saying You Made Them

An anonymous reader writes "Lawmeme's Paul Szynol describes how during installation RealPlayer hides checkboxes that elect that the user receives spam, making it look like the user chose to make the selections when in fact he probably just didn't see the options. "This is essentially a cheap and dirty marketing tactic which creates an illusion of informed acceptance by the user where no such acceptance really exists." Other people have posted similar examples from other applications. Is this illegal, or just annoying?"

Comments

I firewall Realplayer.

[Bonker]

Let's face it. There's stuff out there that you want to see that comes in real format. If it's not downloadable, then I skip it. But if it is downloadable and not restricted to stream-only playback, then I don't hesitate to fire up Real Player, secure in the knowledge that it will never be able to communicate my personal details.

Learn to use software firewalls if you can. Hardware firewalls are great for keeping people from attacking you, but software firewalls are great for managing misbehaving software installations like Realplayer. I've never had a better security tool.

been there for a while now

[Dynedain]

Yep, know exactly what the article is referring to. There's a scrolling box for 'we can market these things to you:' and by default none of the visible checkboxes are marked. However, if you actually scroll the box there are 5 (i think) options at the bottom of the list that are checked.

Tricky Tricky Tricky

And this isn't just on installation, it happens if you fully open RealPlayer to change the stupid take-over-your-computer prefferences.

This is one (of the many) reasons why I don't install RealPlayer on any of my machines, and encourage friends to remove it from theirs. If sites don't have their downloadable content in an alternative format (QT, WM, MP3, Ogg, i don't care which) I just won't watch/listen to it.

I'm doing my part to force 'em out of business. Sure, they are providing competition for MS/Apple, but I find their business practices despicable.

Other RealPlayer Annoyances.

[SlashChick]

I installed RealOne recently, and much to my dismay, they have removed the preference setting to kill "StartCenter". StartCenter is the annoying thing that sits in your system tray and starts up with your computer. In RealOne Player, not only does it have a systray icon, but it also places little pop-up "message" windows on your computer! It's completely disgusting.

There are no preference settings in RealOne Player to disable this, so I thought I'd post this here, since I'm sure this thread will be filled with people who hate RealOne as much as I do.

The startup code for the popup window is hidden in your registry. The easiest way to get rid of it is to use 'msconfig', which comes with every version of Windows except for 2000. (In a minute, I'll explain how to get rid of it on Windows 2000 as well.)

To use msconfig, go to Start->Run and type in 'msconfig' (no quotes.) Go to the Startup tab. You should see an entry beginning with "real". Uncheck the box next to this entry so that it won't load on startup. In addition, look for an entry called "eventsvc" whose command is "c:\Program Files\Common Files\Real..." This is part of RealPlayer as well, and you can uncheck it safely. (While you're at it, this is the place you can disable those useless ATI control panels and other muckety-muck that likes to sit down in the system tray. Don't worry; you can always go back and re-enable the services later if you disable something you need.)

Once you've unchecked whatever you don't want to load, hit "OK". You will be prompted to restart your computer to make the changes take effect. Go ahead and restart. When you log in next time, you'll see a box explaining that your system is now in "diagnostic" mode. Check the box that says "Don't show me this again" and click OK to be on your merry way (hopefully with a faster bootup time.)

In Windows 2000, you can manually edit the Registry to get rid of these keys. Unlike msconfig, there is no going back, so make sure you know what you're doing! Look in HKLM or HKCU under Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run. You should find the little bugger there. Delete it.

(Standard disclaimer: If you screw up your computer doing this, I am not responsible. If you don't know what a key is, it may be best to leave it alone. Doing a Google search may help you figure out what is necessary and what isn't. In general, leave anything that has to do with your hardware alone, especially modem software, as your modem may require it to work properly.)

Also, when installing RealPlayer, always take the time to read the installer to know what it's doing! You can, and should, disable most of the crap it tries to do, such as opening MP3s and auto-updating your RealPlayer with the latest advertisements. Try "compact" mode as well--that should kill most of the remaining advertisements.

I hope this helps those of you who are (unfortunately) faced with RealPlayer's wrath. The tips above can help to tame your system and make it a bit nicer to use your computer.

As always, if you have relatives who use RealPlayer, or you maintain it in an office setting, it may be best to perform that procedure on every computer. There's really no need for workers to be distracted by RealPlayer advertising. If you're using msconfig, don't forget to restart the computer and disable that "diagnostic" mode box that pops up, as well, or your less technically-inclined relatives/co-workers may be calling you for help! ;)

Enforceability

[Chazmyrr]

A key point on the issue of consent was raised in the comments to the original article. This or a similar case is probably why Dark Age of Camelot requires you to scroll through the EULA and rules of conduct before the Agree button can be clicked. I think this practice will become more widespread in the future.

Re: Cheap Trick: RealPlayer Windows Installation (Score: 1)
by Barry on Thursday, January 16 @ 11:43:36 EST
(User Info | Send a Message) www.wbklaw.com
The practive may or may not be "unconscionable," but it does likely fail to create an enforceable contract, at least in the 2nd Circuit. See below.

In Specht v. Netscape Communications Corp.,[*] the court stated that, to be enforceable, click-wrap and shrink-wrap agreements require users to perform an affirmative action unambiguously expressing assent. In this case, there was one small box of text referring to the license language, which was "couched in the mild request 'Please review and agree . . .'" The court found that this was a "mere invitation" and not a condition. Failure to require users to indicate assent was "fatal" to Netscape's argument that a contract had been formed. To be enforceable, language must indicate that a user "must" agree to the license terms. Importantly, for purposes of this post, on appeal, the @nd Circuit found it important that the notice of the existence of the contract was not visible until a user scrolled to the next screen and not visible when the user made the decision to "accept." The Second Circuit said that a reasonably prudent person would not have known or learned of the license terms prior to using the software and could not be held to have had "constructive notice" of the terms. The Second Circuit held that "in circumstances such as these, where consumers are urged to download free software at the immediate click of a button, a reference to the existence of license terms on a submerged screen is not sufficient to place consumers on inquiry or constructive notice of those terms." If the hidden terms at issue here ("consenting" to unwanted spam) would be material to the user's decision to click/accept, Specht may be instructive.

[*] Specht, 150 F.Supp.2d 585 (S.D. NY 2001), aff'd Specht, et al. v. Netscape Communications Corp., et al., Nos. 01-7860(L), 01-7870 (CON), 01-7872(CON) (2nd Cir. October 1, 2002).

Not a problem

[Trogre]

Just as well we don't need to use realplayer any more for "realmedia" content.