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Robolawyer to Handle Clickwraps?
adelord writes "Recently Wired published an essay by Mark D. Rasch describing the need for a 'browser-based automaton that could be adjusted to match your tolerance for legal mumbo jumbo' to help the user navigate the torrent of user agreements most of us click through without reading. Is this a job for Google Labs, and if not, who else would write the software for it? Do you think it is a good idea? While the legal exposure from writing software that partially fills the role of a lawyer could be enormous, I sure that it would have an ironclad user agreement that I would simply click through in my excitement to use it."
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
...they would have to develop a mechanical hand that could pick your pocket.
Hmmmm. If they end up with a product that works as hit-and-miss as Babelfish, wouldn't that jeopordize the correct translation of legalese? Are you still bound to the original mumbo-jumbo if you only understood a flawed translation? Doesn't seem feasable. Why not just dumb down the actual legal language?
it would make more sense to me for someone to write software that would track down the author, or the authoring firm, of each eula down and deliver small electric shocks to them via their keyboards (size of shock could be user-specified).
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
-Oscar Wilde
No spyware would play by the rules. They'd do everything they could to bypass the robo lawyer bot thingy. And how would you - as the article implies - install this software *before* you install your OS?
Infospace aquired Millet software in 2000, Millet software had a product called "Privacy Bank" Which did exactly what this article is describing. The only hard part is that it doesn't scale well, because there isn't a text parser on earth good enough to unwrap the intent of the legalese in most EULAs. So either you have to employ an army of well trained EULA readers or get individual sites to submit to a cleanroom EULA with Infospace's language so that the software can know exactly what is allowed/disallowed.
-*The above statement is printed entirely on recycled electrons*-
Dont agree to them. Simplest way to deal with EULAs. They offer you a contract, you decline it. Optionally you can offer a more reasonable contract to them, perhaps as detailed in the SVLA. The GPL is pretty much the only EULA I agree to these days.
While the fact that legal documents have a very set structure and certain terms are required to be used a certain way in certain documents would help the "robolawyer" parse the documents, when you start getting into jurisdiction changes, differing court judgments on certain clauses, as well as potential legal liability for bad judgment calls made by the "robolawyer," you might just be better off with a Magic 8-Ball.
Of course, the same would apply to an actual lawyer nowadays, but the Magic 8-Ball is less likely to countersue you into oblivion.
RomSteady - I came, I saw, I tested. GamerTag: RomSteady / http://www.romsteady.net
Just as long as Robolawyer started his response with : "IANAL, but...."
This is ridiculous, michael. Why even post this crap. Legal "mumbo-jumbo" exists to protect someone, and is therefore of ultimate importance to be kept AS IS. Changing it with some automated software to "simplify it" is altering the terms of the agreement, which I'm sure wouldn't fly AT ALL in a court of law in nearly any jurisdiction world-wide. How is this "news for nerds, stuff that matters"? This most certainly DOES NOT matter.
to expain the first robolawyer's EULA?
do we get RoboLAPDCops to beat down and mangle anyone who breaks their end of the deals signed by the RoboLawyer on our behalf?
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
I'd prefer it if we just required companies to add summaries to their legal aggreements. Like a little bit at the top that says thing like
* You're not allowed to re-sell this software
* We can use our update feature to install whatever we want on your computer
* Your soul belongs to us
Followed by all the legal mumbo jumbo required to make it all hold up in a court.
"I am sorry Dave. I cannot allow you to agreee to this agreement."
"Hal...!!! Open the webpage HAL!"
"I'm sorry Dave, it has a Nigerian scam on it."
"Hal!!! It's not a Nigerian scam. It's President Bush's campaign page. I need to read about his views for the big election. Since you wouldn't let me read CNN, this is my next option."
"I'm sorry, Dave, but the answer is still, No."
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
My first thought is, if you have a peice of software "signing" these EULAs for you -- who's bound by the "contract?"
I could imagine EULAs having a ``metafield'' which would have values like: GPL, BSD, Unknown Proprietary, Not Specified. You could set your browser to click through known, approved licenses. I'm not sure that would be valuable, though; those that are generally known and widely regarded as innocuous are the ones that don't usually hassle you in the first place.
I'd rather see some effort put into enforcing the first sale doctrine, and invalidating EULAs and clickthroughs in court, myself.
See what I've been reading.
The purpose behind P3P is that it really distills the privacy down to a few multiple choice questions. Thus, there isn't a need for an army of readers - the robolawyer could automatically check the answers to the multiple choice questions... after all, those answers are machine readable.
Since the browser sends a string to the server (indicating browser type and stuff), why not include my terms in the string including "your servers response to this http request indicates your acceptance of these terms". Any response by the server then means they agree.
...especially for any attorney or layperson who lent their talents to the software for translating EULAs. The big question is whether it would be the equivalent of the practice of law. Additionally, would a service like this be the equivalent of beginning an attorney-client relationship between the end-user and the people who helped create and distribute the software?
Quite honestly, I don't know. Like most issues where IT and the law merge, it's a murky area at best. The U.S. legal system is woefully inadequately equipped to handle complex IT litigation, largely because our judges aren't necessarily the most computer-savvy folks on the planet. I've always been a big advocate of creating a separate court system for IT issues, similar to how there are separate patent courts.
At any rate, it just sounds like hassle waiting to happen.
"I do not regret the things I have done, but those that I did not do."
Actually the key to it might be getting companies to agree to a standard EULA, or a few variants of the EULA--Thus real lawyers could read it and parse it to more common terminolgy which is what the program would spit out. That would neatly solve most of the problems--assuming (a) companies would agree to submit their EULAs to whoever's writing the software, (b) that the companies agree with what the plain english version says, and (c) that companies agree not to alter the EULA once it's submitted. Thus this becomes a difficult task, but I don't think it would be impossible.
"Your thinking privleges have been revoked."
----Nicholas Cage, "Gone in 60 Seconds".
Instead of a Robolawyer how about a program that detects EULA and then opens up a new brower page that is linked to a community run website (somelike like Wikipedia, but with more security so that malware writers can't get in there and change things)
This page would display dumbed down information about the EULA that you or I could understand.
I.e:
"Crockbot2004"
This EULA would like you to agree to the following:
I will allow "Crockbot 2004" to:
1. monitor my browing and send information about it periodically to a server. This transfer will not be sanitized to remove personal information
2. download ads and display them on my computer
3. execute abitrary code and utilize my network connection
So a human would do the decyphering, the Eula-robo would simply have to fetch the information.
And then I as a user could go "Woah, I don't want to download illegal mp3s that badly!" and cancel the install.
-paridel
Let me explain myself. Above all, IANAL. But something that always puzzles me is the enphasys put in someone reading the EULA. I mean, sometimes, they actually make you scroll the EULA all the way to the bottom before letting you click the "I Accept" botton.
Again, I'm not a lawyer, but if so much effort is put by the Soft. companies in the fact that you read the EULA, must be to save their asses.
Why is it that by default, the focus is in the "I do NOT Accept"? So that you don't click it automatically. Why not? So that if you ever want to complain about the EULA, the soft company can argue they did everything in their power to stop you from accepting without reading it first.
What happens if you have some program like this installed? Will they be as protected as when you read it through (scroll down)? Will you be able to argue: "I didn't know you were selling my email address!"
I'm not sure, so this isn't an authoritative comment, these are just my thoughts.
Here's my thought. Design a click through thing that just blindly accepts any legal agreement without showing it to the user. The name of the program is something like "agree to disagree". This calls into question the validity of any agreement that (a) you weren't shown and (b) did not have direct control over and (c) which you installed something to avoid dealing with.
While the company that presented the agreement will have a record of a URL hit by you with a form with a certain radio button set, when it comes time to deal with a lawsuit it won't stand up in court because the form submission was automated. To make a bizarre metaphor, if I hand a screaming monkey a rubber stamp with my name on it, I am not bound by any contracts the screaming rubber-stamp-wielding monkey accidentally stamps.
Second idea is to publish your personal conditions and email them to the company or include the URL in some form submission. Once you have a situation where your conditions conflict with theirs and the only "signatures" are form submission records, they are going to have a difficult time proving that there was an actual agreement in the legal sense of the word.
I just cross my fingers and think to myself that clickthrough EULAs can't really be legally binding and then I click away!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
A system like this is a complex language-parsing utility that can connect its analysis of a text with a database of appropriate knowledge--legal, in this case. It must also have the ability to discriminate between levels of complexity to appropriately disclude certain information. That's the easy 90% of creating an AI. You could cut out the legal database. That's not too important. But the only other way to simplify a EULA summarization utility would be to match the pattern of each clause with a member of a predefined set of proto-clauses and parse the whole expression based on unique keywords; from that point there would be a dictionary that would instruct the utility to omit the clause or summarize it in a particular manner. The former method is much more certain than the latter, which is liable to omit clauses that you should read and display ones that don't matter. However, the latter method is more reasonable.
"I agreed to WHAT ?!!!!"
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Sales volume is inversely proportional to EULA clarity, therefore if you make EULAs 'super' clear, you will jepodise the sales of many consumer goods. EULAs would often look something like this:
-This disk won't work with other players
-You can't use this phone on any other network
-This software may not be secure and if you loose your data its not our fault
-You cannot copy this CD, it will not work in some players
-This player will not let you skip adverts on DVDs that you have bought, you will have to watch them even though you paid
-You are not buying this disk, you are buying a license to use it, we have the right to revoke it at any time without question or refund
You see, the economy relies on sub-standard goods, buy clarifying EULAs you are screwing with the economy.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
EULAs and clickthroughs will not be invalidated in court as long as they are reasonable. The courts consider "reasonable" the ability for you not to use the software (or return it within a short period of time).
The case you are recalling (where the court explicitly defined what it thinks is reasonable) is probably Blizzard v. bnetd where the EULA preventing reverse engineering (among other things). The EULA was held up as a valid contract. There was no "first sale" involved at all per the above situation with software being licensed.
Has anyone patented it yet? Seems a good thing to patent.
This was the notion behind P3P. Also see Agent: I dont think it means, what you think it means.
Abstract
As the deployment of computer agents that act on behalf of users grow, so do questions regarding the legitimacy and legal standing of computer based agreements. I note the use of the terms "agents" and "proxy" in the technical discipline and argue that a more explicit understanding of these terms is necessary to properly address the convergence of technical and legal issues related to electronic commerce. Unfortunately, much of the legal literature on the question of computer agency is preoccupied with concepts of intelligence, consideration, and intention within a computer program; this is because these concepts are found in law. However, these concepts are premature in a technical context -- regardless of hand-waiving about artificial intelligence. I provide a simple technical explanation of computer agents and proxies, as well as a brief etymology of those terms in the technical context. I conclude by pointing out some problems of making automated agreements on the Web in hopes that this small contribution will permit legal analysis to focus on pressing issues of the day.
In a perfect world, the amount of legaleze I need to agree on would have some relation wih the product. a 10 page contract, that requies in depth study and advanced knowledge of the law to fully understand, might be appropriate for a million dollar deal, but not for a 20$ piece of software from walmart.
of course I have no good idea how to enforce this.
a possibility would be to define certain standart conditions with descritive labels, that companies could use, like NO-WARRANTY, MUST-NOT-COPY, ONLY-NONCOMMERCIAL. then limit the additional legaleze to only a few paragraphs for "minor" purchases by law.
(this draft of a "solution" has numerous problems. still, what are your thougths?)
I wish lawyers would strive for accuracy instead of precision.