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Gator's EULA Dissected

Posted by michael on from the mightier-than-the-sword dept.

theVP writes "Ben Edelman has recently written up his disassembly of the Gator EULA. He has come across some interesting finds, including the fact that their EULA states that you can't remove their software via 3rd-party means, as well as prohibiting the use of packet sniffers or intercepting the data coming from their software."

5 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Somehow I think/hope... by Ayaress · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That if they ever decided to try to legally enforce that EULA that the fact that their software installs itself without permission or intervention from the user invalidates it. The legitimacy of EULA's aside, they usually say they're activated by using the software. You don't really use Gator/Claria/whatever they're calling themselves now, and most of the people who have it probably don't even know they have it, so you don't do anything to enter into the agreement.

    1. Re:Somehow I think/hope... by Rick+the+Red · · Score: 3, Insightful
      I think you're missing the point. Let's say Gator's software is reading all your email and sending copies back to them. How would you know? If you ever found out and complained, Gator can say there's no way for you to know this without violating the terms of the license, which means you had no right to use their software, which opens you up to penalties for copyright violation and makes any evidence you may have inadmissable in court. Which puts the current efforts to criminalize what has until now been a civil issue in a whole new light. Leave it to the real bad guys to misuse a tool designed to catch folks who share music.

      You realize that this means even the FBI can't test Gator to see if it snags people's data and sends it "home". Nobody can, legally.

      --
      If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
  2. Re:Death penatly for spyware. by Ayaress · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think that would set a very bad precident on what the government would accept as grounds for capitol punishment. Afterwards, people would be saying, "You killed those bastards for making spyware, why is my neighbor still alive? He walked on my goddamn lawn!" and so forth.

    Now angry mobs armed with torches and pitchforks, on the other hand, have nothing to do with the government and I hear they make for some damn fine keggars afterwards.

  3. No packet sniffing??? by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Wait, so they are asserting they own control of any network which has had Gator installed? If I have a home LAN, and I'm sniffing packets on my LAN, those packets belong to me. So if someone installs it on a corporate computer, then the IT department is now prohibited from reading their own packet data?

    They also claim that someone who installs a piece of software on a machine can make anyone else who uses that machine bound by that agreement? How the hell does that work? "By clicking here, your agree your sister will have sex with me" is not a valid license. And if the user wasn't the duly authorized 'owner' of the machine, is their entire license void???

    Good god. I completely can't see how any of this shit is legal. Not even remotely. Especially since it piggy-backs its installs with so many other things.

    Sheesh. No wonder I do my web surfing on Mozilla on a FreeBSD box behind a firewall. Good luck putting gator on that.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  4. Re:Opportunity for EULA court case? by magefile · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yes ... but Gator and some other spyware programs are voluntarily downloaded (I just spent 20 minutes explaining to a neighbor that there was no point in having me clean spyware off her computer if she wanted to keep CometCursor). Now, perhaps one could argue that a EULA of that sort is invalid because people don't read it, and the company knows it (a "good faith" type argument), but I have no idea whether that would hold any legal water.