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Man Finds $1,000 Prize in EULA

Posted by samzenpus on from the read-the-fine-print dept.

bhtooefr writes "When Doug Heckman was installing a PC Pitstop program, he actually read the EULA. In it, he found a clause stating that he could get financial compensation if he e-mailed PC Pitstop. The result: a $1,000 check, and proof that people don't read EULAs (3,000 people before him didn't notice it). The goal of this was to prove that one should read all EULAs, so that one can see if an app is spyware if it is buried in the EULA."

4 of 446 comments (clear)

  1. No Kidding by fembots · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One of our developers buried some easter eggs in a web-based game, and nobody has claimed them yet after several months.

    And the kicker is, players do talk about strange "bugs", even ask us to fix them, but none of them actually goes so far as to discover those eggs. Maybe they will now after reading this post :)

    So I gather some of the 3000 users may have read the EULA but dismissed the possibility of real cash prize., just like not everybody entered suparmarket prize draw thinking that they won't be so lucky.

    --
    Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
  2. Er... by Avyakata · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's not going to make people read EULAs...all that will make people do is say, "wow, I wish I had been that guy, what a break!"

    1. Re:Er... by XorNand · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, but it's brillant marketing. The company only spent $1000. They've already gotten a link from the main page of Slashdot; what more press are they going to see now? The spyware removal business has gotten pretty competitive and now thousands more geeks know about their product. Kudos to the company for a neat, non-evil marketing idea.

      --
      Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
  3. Nice "parable", but no great utility by rkmath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So this is the latest variant of the old fable (big boulder in the middle of the road, everyone walks around it, the chap who finally pushes it aside finds the treasure underneath). But really - nice as the story is, is it going to make any change to how people treat an EULA? I think not.

    People will still not read an EULA because

    (a) They know thay not every EULA has a $1000 check buried in it

    (b) They still won't understand the real point to reading the EULA - which is understanding exactly what the software claims it will do on your computer.

    Unless they get (b), there really is no reason to read an EULA.