Slashdot Mirror
The 5 Most Laughable Terms of Service On the Net
nicholas.m.carlson writes "According to these five terms of service and EULA, Google owns any content you create using its Chrome browser and can filter your Gmail messages if it likes. Facebook says it can sell its users' uploaded images as stock photography. YouTube can keep footage of your kids forever, even after you've deleted it from the site. And AOL can ban you for using vulgar language on AIM. Funny, right? That's why Valleywag calls them 'The 5 most laughable terms of service on the Net.'"
Reader dlaudel writes, regarding the previously-mentioned Google EULA for Chrome, "According to Ars Technica, Google's EULA for Chrome was just copy-and-pasted from its EULA for other services, a practice that is apparently common at Google."
I never knew there was a way to guarantee a first post...That makes your failure all the sweeter. Mmmmm, tasty failure.
I skimmed the terms of use when I started my Verizon DSL account several years ago, and I'm quite certain it said something about downloading pornography being prohibited. Um, yeah, sure -- click "agree" to continue...
what happens if these companies decide to try enforcing the EULAs?
not only is time travel possible, it's irrelevant.
Not really. The google one's funny, although wikis which were made with a predominantly chrome-using user base might have a problem with it. The facebook one is blatantly taking a right that it doesn't have a legitimate reason to take.
AIM probably has that in case someone goes crazy swearing at some kids and a bunch of soccer moms get angry, and the youtube one is probably some CYA, since services like that can often store copies that are hard if not impossible to find.
Overall, the terms of service (like most ToS's) are overkill and not something that people would agree to if they actually read it. The problem is that they put them in legalese, which might as well be japanese for most people.
These days, laws force people that store data to keep a copy of that data for 'forensic puropses'.
OTOH, when posting anything to The Internets, don't be surprised if it shows up in some odd places (like a google search by your boss).
"I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. It's the one thing I am indebted to her for."
the DMCA is laughable too, and we're not laughing
Before anyone says something along the lines of the following...
But these are private companies, they can do whatever they want. It's there space.
..., please tell me when the last time Youtube told you it would hold your content after you deleted it. Oh right, you had to find that little minuscule footer link that most no one goes to. These are also posted when signing up, but they are in boring, long, law-speak that no one bothers to understand.
In order to keep things simple for our users, we try to use the same set of legal terms (our Universal Terms of Service) for many of our products. Sometimes, as in the case of Google Chrome, this means that the legal terms for a specific product may include terms that donâ(TM)t apply well to the use of that product. We are working quickly to remove language from Section 11 of the current Google Chrome terms of service. This change will apply retroactively to all users who have downloaded Google Chrome.
Rebecca Ward, Senior Product Counsel for Google Chrome
...is scary the next.
Granted, most people ignore the EULAs. But, what happens if the EULAs can actually be enforced?
Everyone asks for whatever they think they can get preemptively to reduce their own liability. I mean, imagine Facebook loses all your pictures through some data breach. If they didn't have all the rights to 'em sewn up, this might be a problem.
Likewise the rest. If you have no rights, you can't complain when they get infringed on. The AOL thing is probably more along the lines of pre-justifying the banning of accounts.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
the lease I signed with my landlord says he can kick me out, anytime, for whatever reason.
However that said, they are dead serious about ownership and this is one of the main reasons I post no creative content on sites I do not own. When it comes down to litigation, who has the bigger pocket? Certainly not me...
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
Lol 3rd Pots! err opst ...stop
Fuck it.
Content created with Google Chrome. By reading this post you acknowledge and agree that Google (or Google's licensors) own all legal right, title and interest in and to the post, including any intellectual property rights which subsist in the post (whether those rights happen to be registered or not, and wherever in the world those rights may exist). You further acknowledge that the post may contain information which is designated confidential by Google and that you shall not disclose such information without Google's prior written consent.
The Google EULA states that you grant them a non-exclusive right to store and reproduce your stuffs where necessary for the use of Google's services, which is a necessity because otherwise they'd be infringing on your IP rights by storing your files and serving them up to you. You retain copyright, ownership, blah de blah, as stated at the top of that part of the EULA. For Chrome, it's already been revised to only include the "you retain your rights" clause.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Heh heh... Just the other day an acquaintance was telling me that his company won't use open source software because the GPL is "too restrictive" (huh?). So I suggested that he actually read the EULAs for the software they do use there. He just mutters something about communism and the conversation is over!
is none of them are legally enforcable
by reading this post and moving your mouse or touching your keyboard
you agree to assign all property to me forever
Most people don't actually read all of the Terms of Service, including myself. The problem is we don't feel that large companies (such as the ones expressed in the article) would take advantage of us in their EULA and just agree to anything. But if we did read and find it (such as now) are we going to stop using these services? Probably not.
Anything and Everything about the Net
Tomorrow we'll see the 10 fastest ... and then the 20 worst ... and then the 100 funniest ...
And on the day I read a headline like "the 50 hottest nerds" on the frontpage, I'll digg that story. (and promote it on every other page I can find too).
Slashdot will need it, by then. Sigh..
Copy-paste copy-paste copy-paste
I think that these kind of clauses in the TOS (particularly the YouTube one listed) have to do with the fact that they aren't going to go through all their data backups and guarantee they delete your video submissions, even if you delete it from the site. When you think of it in that context, it makes a lot of sense for them to cover their asses.
not so much funny "ha ha" as funny "holy crap these companies are all run by people with God complexes."
ôó
The story submission makes assertions about the claims in the various user agreements and then 'supports' these claims by linking to the entire agreements, leaving it for you to sift through the masses of text yourself, to prove or disprove the claims!
Why not just say something like "User agreements are bad, go google up some EULAs and see for yourself!"
New. Low.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
How's that for some sh---
[------ACCOUNT BANNED-------]
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
And all this time, I though EULA stood for:
.hit the any key to agree . . .
Entirely
Useless
Languages
of America
Doh! . .
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
You saved me the trouble of RTFA, which of course I usually do.
These are far and away worse than the petty restrictions placed in the examples cited in the article.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
WARNING: the above link leads to a nasty GNAA page, and it's the same one you all have seen, so don't click it out of curiosity.
Would you wizz on an electric fence?
Seems pretty clear to me. Why the rabble rabble?
"According to Ars Technica, Google's EULA for Chrome was just copy-and-pasted from its EULA for other services, a practice that is apparently common at Google."
Why the hell do they think they need an "EULA" or "TOS" for a supposedly Open Source program at all? Doesn't Google run these things pas their lawyers? Or do they and this is the result?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Would you wizz on an electric fence?
It hurts :(
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Man Finds $1,000 Prize in EULA
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/23/2315211
The lunatic is in my head
As you agreed in section 3(a) which references paragraph C(7) we are allowed all avenues in subsection (i) and (ii) of endorsement (A) and as a user of this you agree to be limited by Exhibit (D) with respect to Paragraphs (3),(7),and (11), but you may have additional rights as described in Part IV of this Agreement.
Please hit any key to agree . . .
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missiles, or chemical or biological weapons.
I always make it a point to alter the EULA to my terms. Really, if a forced, non-negotiated contract can be valid, I've got them by the balls.
A simple yellow Post-It note with my terms stuck to the screen allows me to click "OK" to the presented terms.
I'm not sure how I'm going to get Google to send me all of their 2008 profits in exchange for testing their browser, though.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Damn AC, you need to have a "#.???" in there.
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
All your base are belong to Google
"11. Content license from you
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services."
Oh wait... This... This is Slashdot. Forgive me I... I didn't realize where I was...
This TOS needs commentary.
There are many choice tidbits, including this one from section 5:
SourceForge reserves the right to refuse or delete any Content of which it becomes aware and reasonably deems not to fulfill the Most Holy Purposes laid down by CmdrTaco and CowboyNeal....
Okay, maybe not, but what if...?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
As far as deleting content, we all know that is BS. These users voluntarily unloaded the content. Not one forced them. They uploaded the content onto a free service and expect some privacy? That is like allowing some random house painters to paint you house for free, and expect all you stuff to be there when you get back.
I have much more sympathy for the TOS when a product is free than when the product has a real cost. The free service has to protect itself from intellectual theft and harassment by lawsuit. If a video sharing site did not own the content, or at least a license to it in perpetuity, then these services surely would be sued by young teen unmarried mother who was foolish enough to post a video of her naked baby running around the house, only to be chided by her mother that such pictures were not good publicity.
OTOH, the publicity of the TOS are good because they help educate the populous that nothing is truly free. The pictures, videos, and words you post can be used if and when there is a need for someone to so do. I am wondering if this is the year when a sex video has political ramifications. At least with words, you can say you were just playing around. So, I think as people get used to these free services, we will see a more sane approach to the situation. Honestly, this tech is just too new for social norms to have developed around them.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Is for the Dunhill web site. Dunhill makes expensive stuff for people who earn bags of money. In their EULA, it says that you are not allowed to link to their web site unless you get written permission. You can read that http://www.dunhill.com/en/terms-and-conditions/ Be sure to forward that to a few people.
This looks like a bashing that went wrong. Complain about Googles bad EULA and they turn around on a dime and change it to the better the very next day. It must be very very hard to run a smear campaign against a company like that. Sucks to be Microsofts astroturfers nowadays.
HTTP/1.1 400
Quite interesting, I clicked it out of curiosity after reading your post to see if it could do any harm since I consider myself protected enough by using Firefox on Linux with some restrictive settings. *Sigh*... The only way to get rid of it was to issue "killall firefox" - so much for the pop-up blocker. I guess using NoScript is not that paranoid after all.
What strikes me as interesting is that Facebook thinks they can sell your photos you upload. IANAL, but I am pretty sure that unless I explicitly transfer the rights over to them I maintain all ownership and copyright control over any photos (that I took myself) uploaded to them. I don't think a blanket EULA can revoke my right to the copyrights. Am I wrong here?
Just go to their original open-source site and download it from there. No EULA at all other than the BSD one(which is fairly non-intrusive)
http://code.google.com/chromium/
You will need to compile it, though, but I suspect a compiled non-EULA version of it will be available for Windows very very soon.
You understand and agree, however, that YouTube may retain, but not display, distribute, or perform, server copies of User Submissions that have been removed or deleted.
This clause is likely in place just so as to protect them against malicious/trivial suits like "Hey, you kept a cached copy on the server even when it was removed/deleted". Technically (and I'm just guessing here, not really aware of how Youtube's content delivery system is implemented), it may be more efficient to remove the video from the listing/database and/or flag it as un-servable while maintaining the cached copies for a while. All such cached copies may then be purged after a certain interval. Well, according to this condition, you're agreeing that for a certain time there might be cached copies on their servers. The clause does not say they might be retained "indefinitely" and that is likely not their intention.
You understand and agree, however, that YouTube may retain, but not display, distribute, or perform, server copies of User Submissions that have been removed or deleted. The above licenses granted by you in User Comments are perpetual and irrevocable
So they can keep it, but not watch it, broadcast it or transfer it elsewhere? Seems to me this is just to make sure you can't sue them for not wiping the file from their servers the nanosecond you tell them to.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
.
not if you are marketing a product or service to users who want a family friendly experience. then it is just good business. no goat sex links. no GNAA.
For those of you that DO want to click on the link, and are using firefox, after you manage to kill the horrible monstrosity that will spawn on your computer. remember to start firefox in safemode.
If using windows adding -safemode to the target will work.
None of these are as good as this one: http://www.dvorak.org/blog/html/terms.html
I vaguely remember Firefox receiving Google-money from searches? And of course they're trying to make the world a better place, which is great. Google I guess also gets to push their search engine. But how does Opera make their money? And what's in it for, say, Microsoft? Is it just to push a few preinstalled URLs? Or is it a branding exercise? Or...
Any info greatly appreciated!
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
Ever notice how often they'll have video of some event and then have, on-screen "source: YouTube.com" and the like?
Do you really think that they went through the trouble of...
1. finding the original creator of the video (note the shittonne of duplicate vids on YouTube)
2. trying to contact that creator and getting permission to use the video?
Of course not. If they did, then it would've been "source: SatanicPuppy", not YouTube.com .
In fact, do you think they ask -YouTube- for permission? Heck no.
They are, largely, playing the flipside of the coin that YouTube itself is tossing. "Copyright? We'll worry about that when and IF a claim comes in."
And it's not just the news - it's pre-recorded programs as well.
So to get back to Facebook; can they sell photos you upload to their servers? I'm willing to bet they can - and if you find they've done so with your photo, good luck suing; which is the only recourse - and sometimes not even on grounds of copyright ( as evidenced by that Virgin Mobile thing down under; http://www.flickr.com/groups/central/discuss/72157600541608353/ , the grounds there were based on 'model release' thingamajiggers )
Since Chrome isn't a service, by the letter of Google's EULA for chrome, you're not using their service so they don't won your work, BUT they own every website you view (display) using it.
Since when did being able to get the source if you receive a copy of the binary mean that the company couldn't put restrictions on use? You're at least the second to ask this, and yes, you're missing something.
11. Content license from you
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.
"Knowing everything doesn't help..."
I think a lot of people don't read the EULA because they know it's all stuff to protect the company producing it & if there ever were something absurd in it, as was the case with the AT&T arbitration clause, justice will ultimately prevail.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Neither is actually possible, but they CAN choose not to enforce any portions the old one which they don't feel are worth enforcing. Contract law pretty clearly prevents any party from changing the terms of a contract after all parties agree to it without everyone's consent.
Incidentally, it would be interesting to see if there are any all new provisions (not just loosened or stricken ones, they are able to enforce the EULA as lightly as they please) to the new one which in fact wouldn't apply to people who agreed to the old one instead.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
You just cut and paste TOS paragraphs that have already been approved by the legal department and then you can claim that the entire new TOS has already been approved by legal! Quicker time-to-market!
perhaps I should have also added "after the delivery/sale."
Offer and acceptance occurs at that time. Even if you adhere to the belief that consideration is necessary to a contract, it also occurs at that time. An EULA is a coercive attempt to apply terms AFTER a contract has been finalized, and unilaterally, to boot. Forget the "return for refund" clauses - I've already spent valuable time, effort, and cost of money, and my terms for revisiting an already existing contract are refund plus $100K. Otherwise, don't bother me. If you allow me to run your software when there's a sticky above the "OK" button which says "Provided for use with no conditions," then that's your problem.
What's fair for the goose, is fair for the gander.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sorry, but our systems have detected that you posted the above using Google Chrome. Therefore, the content of your first post are belong to us, along with any rule-ness benefits ownership implies.
I download Chrome. I use Chrome to upload my photos to PBase. Google has the right to distribute copies of my photos any way they please. And yes, I read the Chrome EULA on Google's site.
I know I'm not supposed to RTFA, but I couldn't resist. And when I did, the Google Chrome EULA said (section 9.4):
And section 11 says,
I don't like social networking sites...
-- Sex is the antonym of pringles. Once you pop it's time to stop.
When I was preparing to market some software, my own lawyer and I talked about it. This was several years ago but oddly enough I don't think the situation has changed much since.
The subject was "Click Through Agreements" be they on the web or on software installation programs. According to her (and she's the lead partner for IP in a fairly prestigious firm) the funny thing about click-through agreements is that they're entirely untested.
While everyone in the IP industry sort of goes along assuming they'll hold up, there remains this possibility that if someone ever did go to court the entire practice could get thrown out as invalid. We all declare that these agreements have meaning, and as long as we all pretend to admire his outfit, the emperor is treated as if fully clothed.
Any misunderstanding of my interpretation of this is down to me, not the lawyer who is quite good at her job.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
EULAs are governed by contract law. Contract law is a two-way street. Just as web administrators and software vendors can communicate to visitors/customers what they assert to be the legal terms, customers can communicate back. In principle, contract law does not favor either administrators or customers. Individuals may be able to use contract law to assert their legal terms on other parties, such as search engines. --Ben http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2008/05/google-privacy-policy-terms-of-service.html My ideas are not legal advice for any particular situation; they are just ideas for public discussion.
Benjamin Wright, Dallas, Texas, benjaminwright.us
Basically every website I've ever built has a T&C, and every time we have the discussion with the client about them, it goes like this.
"We need some content for your terms and conditions page"
"ok, umm... what do you think?"
"well, we have a boilerplate T&C we use that covers most bases..."
"OH! well just put that in there!"
I've only ever had ONE company deliver an actual real true to life T&C they wrote themselves, and even *IT* was a cut and paste off of an earlier site they had that we didn't build.
All in all, I'd say that most companies really couldn't give the slightest shit about T&Cs, and it really surprises me the amount of debate that goes on about them around here. Surely people just ignore them and do whatever they want anyway? And as for "we will not sell your details", well, isn't it just easier to assume they will and use mailinator / easily filterable addressses?
Perhaps the answer to the problem of teenagers dropping bricks from motorway and railway bridges is to sue Tetris.
Would you wizz on an electric fence?
Mythbusters did it
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
The practice is common at Apple as well. They recently got caught copying the EULA from the Mac version of Safari to Windows version. The problem? The EULA says you can only use it on Mac hardware!
If companies don't even read their own EULAs, how can they expect the users to read them?
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
AOL can ban you from communicating on its servers for pretty much anything they want to ban you for, because you're using their servers.
Most of the other EULA's(barring the one about google keeping stuff forever, which they can probably do so long as they don't distribute it) are totally unreasonable clauses for aggressive use.
The google ones are mostly to cover their own asses in case you put a google doc , or youtube video up and publish it to the world and then sue them for sharing your data.
If they ever tried to profit from it they'd get sued, and the court would look at their contract provision and laugh.
I can write a contract wherein you promise your first-born child, but no court anywhere were slavery is illegal(if slavery is legal then it's a contract for the exchange of goods which is legal) will uphold it.
A contract doesn't make it so, and onerous conditions have to be worded very very carefully(which is why so very few non compete agreements can be enforced).
Try reading through an Australian ISP's Standard Form Of Agreement. Last time I looked, my ISP's one had grown to 112 pages. It was 32 pages when I joined them - god only knows what rights I don't have to use the net these days. It's so long that they actually provide a summarized one for customers, which is only 10 pages long.
... wait, what?
However, they don't want to get sued if somehow, unlikely though it might seem, you upload a video to their service, and subsequently delete it... it might still be available. Especially when it gets copied over many servers. It's possible something could fall through the cracks. They can either steadfastly uphold a policy whereby they will diligently ensure that every deleted video is permanently deleted... or they can risk losing about 5 free customers who are worried about it and simply say they can keep them forever if they want.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
No one had mentioned it in this discussion and I hadn't seen the previous article when I posted.
OK, so they can put restrictions on the binary they put out. But they can't put an EULA (per se) on the source. Or it wouldn't be open source. Someone else could put out binaries without the EULA. So it seems silly and pointless in itself to have an EULA on open source code.
Wow, it feels like I'm on 4chan. Do you really think Google cares enough to go through your email or Chrome usage details? At most, they'll sell your contact info to junk mail companies (which they won't, because they'd catch hell for doing so). And my Facebook photos? It's not like they're going to use that photo I uploaded last week of me giving the Batwing to those three girls down the hall. I think I can live being used as stock footage. And if you still HAVE to have your privacy, that's cool too. Use a different browser, a different FREE email provider, and a different social networking site. I'm already tired of all of this FUD being created by people who think Big Globocorp is going to care that much about them. Chrome hasn't been out for much longer than 30 hours, and this EULA/TOS crap has already made it to the front page of Slashdot? Next time, try READING the legalese, like they ask you to. If you can't handle agreeing to them, DON'T CLICK AGREE.
Firefox3 seemed to start up again OK though?
I wonder what this GNAA plugin d...%>£$>'%{....
Those are the Terms of Use and it is pretty standard for the Terms of Use of any website to include people who are not registered. What, you think just because you don't register a username that /. doesn't care if you troll?
The article summary (and orginal Valleywag article) are misleading. They both fail to note that the Facebook EULA allows you to revoke the license by removing your content: "If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire..." Facebook could never create a stock photography site -- it's customers can cause the license to the content to expire at any time. Frankly, the Facebook EULA is quite reasonable. Facebook needs rights to the content that it has on the site, and that is what it asks for.
Can I write my EULA in pseudo-code or () and it still be considered binding (as much as a EULA can be)?
I just can't be bothered.
try putting some line breaks in there and they might actually read it...
... wait, what?
Don't any of you guys do backups?
If you store user-submitted content, and the user deletes part of it, are you going to go through all of your securely stored backup media and alter these backups by deleting that content? Please note the "may retain, but not display" part of these terms.
"Dear Performer.
When I view your act, it sends my Dopamine levels spiking."
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Well, that they'll come up with even more ludicrious crap, they already did, after all. But now you have a court decision and precedent that some kinds of crap are against the law, and thus null and void. Just rewording it yet again won't make it any more legal than it was the first time around.
So, technically, at some point it doesn't matter what they write there. If it's not legal and was ruled as such, you can ignore it anyway. And there's a finite domain of bullshit they can claim, so each such court decision narrows it down some more.
And yes, it happened before. There are already court decisions that some of the things in EULAs aren't even worth the space they take on the CD, but they're written anyway. Apparently hoping that you'll believe it anyway. And in all fairness, some people do.
E.g., around here they already decided long ago that the first sale doctrine does apply, and, for example, no EULA can forbid you to resell your old software. But I've yet to see some EULA which doesn't go the "it was licensed, not bought, so we don't have to comply with consumer rights laws. You don't have any rights. 'Cause we just said so." route.
Heck, Microsoft itself tried to argue that, basically, see, actually its software is sold after all, when India told them to pay the license tax if it's licensed.
And the copyright law loophole that brought us all the "license" stupidity (see, you make a copy into RAM to run it, and if you make a copy you need a license on our terms) has been closed long ago.
Methinks we probably need stiffer penalties for trying to override the laws. As it is, there's very little disincentive, and at any rate it obviously doesn't work. There are millions of EULAs are written that, essentially, claim they're exempt from the law. We'll know we have the right disincentive when that stops.
But again, once it was decided that it's unenforceable, it doesn't matter if they write it some more in even more draconian and restrictive language. You can ignore it anyway.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Either I'm missing something (and IAAL, so I don't think I am), but the Chrome TOS is quite clear that it doesn't own the IP iny any property you create. Have the good folks at the Googleplex changed the TOS since the article was posted? See 9.4 "... Google acknowledges and agrees that it obtains no right, title or interest from you (or your licensors) under these Terms in or to any Content that you submit, post, transmit or display on, or through, the Services ..."
And 11.1: "You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services."
Awhile back www.flickr.com changed their terms of service (ToS), and gave users a few weeks warning that they would have to create a Yahoo ID in order to log in any more. If you were paying for a 'Pro' account and you didn't want a Yahoo! ID, tough luck no refunds. After an online riot they did eventually agreed to refund money to those who wouldn't conform to the new ToS.
During the heated discussion, Flickr staff repeatedly averred that their ToS included a phrase something like "We can change our ToS at any time, in any manner, without telling users in advance." This incident lost Flickr the trust of their community, and left the perception that the company would sell their users out without any qualms.
Other Slashdotters will be able to fill out the gaps in that summary. Suffice to say that for myself I intend never to pay for access to an online service again.
Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
There's a huge difference between reserving rights and what is enforcable. Try calling in the rights to *pronounce* a trademark, even though it explicitly says "ALL rights reserved". You can't force an EULA to be too specific. You must leave room for interpretation both in and out of court. This is just silly.
If you're looking for silly terms (even if they're clearly cut and paste errors), I fondly recall the C development package for Acorn computers in which the EULA explicitly forbade you from incorporating any part of the software into another program. ISTR the words were something like "any program distributed or used by you" - so you're OK writing, compiling and linking "helloworld.c"* provided you didn't actually run the result... Not that they ever showed any sign of enforcing it - but it invites the question "which bits of these stupid documents are you meant to take seriously?"
(* or c.helloworld for any Acorn purists out there...)
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
It's a board game in one of the Ren & Stimpy episodes :D
JOY!
This is the sig that says NI (again)
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them.
Just so long as you're not using Chrome, right?
Even more laughable is hiring a legal counsel to help draft something which is rarely read and mercifully, never understood until a problem arises. Best. alain mor.ph
In order:
1. Chrome - Already removed; rookie boilerplate error.
2. Gmail - How do you think spam pre-filtering on the inbound MXes works, exactly? (think: RBLs)
3. Facebook - clearly a CYA clause
4. YouTube - CYA clause, but admittedly overly broad and could be reigned in
5. AIM - CYA clause, plus sending obscene/profane/indecent messages over electronic communications is illegal in many countries anyway, but rarely enforced except where there's a complaint about harassment or similar.
Lessee...
Things that can happen to a Offer of a contract (EULA).
Accepted, or Rejected with Counter Offer.
So by printing out a copy of the EULA and attaching the sticky note & sending it back, you are counter-offering.
Believe it or not, this essentially CAN be done, and I have succeeded once in doing so. Basically, some company had a nasty boilerplate EULA "that they got from Legal". I had a couple of careful discussions with the top management, and for my personal copy was allowed to agree to a more balanced EULA.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
As we are constantly reminded by the **AA... license != own. The Chrome terms of service gives Google a LICENSE, not OWNERSHIP RIGHTS (that is specifically NOT given to Google in a previous section).
*sigh*
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
I love that fact that this has been modded informative.
I can't find the EULA (not surprising) on their website, but it is probably hidden there someplace. I remember reading it and it had a line something like this "at any time at the sole discretion of Cogeco Cable this agreement can be change in whole or in part" or something along those lines. It also followed that this would be done with "notification" to the user. When I called their support I discovered that "notification" really just meant they would update the hidden website EULA. I guess users are just supposed to check every other day and see if the deal has changed or something....
To quote Darth Vader:
I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.
For more fun check this out, their Acceptable Use Agreement (that probably no one is aware about either).
http://www.cogeco.ca/files/pdf/legal/HSI_PUA_on_en.pdf
I para phrase, but it basically says we will limit your use by various ways, and we will pretty much do what we damn please. I think tomorrow we will change schedule A so your download limit is 1mb, and then when you exceed it, we will cancel your service.
"According to Ars Technica, Google's EULA for Chrome was just copy-and-pasted from its EULA for other services [CC], a practice that is apparently common at Google."
Let me get this straight. If a company (even a "good" company like Google) can't even be bothered to read and understand their own EULA, how can all the users be expected to? What a joke. Even the lawyers forcing these EULAs down our throats pay no more attention than the average user. Where is the "meeting of the minds" that a (valid) contract supposedly represents, when nobody thinks through the details?
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay
From the Facebook terms of service: "By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing."
English's not my native language, I may be overlooking a legal subtelty... but this looks like Facebooks takes the right to GIVE my pics, not to SELL them. As for "derivative works", is a generated thumbnail a "derivative work" of the pic I just uploaded?
Don't forget to think different.
Google's new browser will do everything including making you a cup of tea. This is all paid for by personally-directed text ads in your tea leaves, based on analysing a DNA sample taken when you sip the tea and sending your genetic code back to Google for future targeting.
Not evil.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
There was a similar EULA for Matlab - prohibited development, of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons... Weapons of Maths destruction
I think the main idea was that you weren't allowed to leverage MSVC to write your own languages that might compete with MSVC, or to write "MSOffice"-type products. Mostly, I think they were keen that you didn't use the Access db engine as the basis of your own generic database program, or the old (very powerful, now withdrawn) version of the VB "grid" control as the basis of your own spreadsheet program.
But the prohibition was open-ended. So there was a risk that if you developed some new sort of productivity tool or ecommerce or banking application using MS tools, and it was a soaring success, and MS decided that they wanted a slice of the action, their lawyers could insist that your old product was now breaking the conditions of the EULA by competing with the newer MS "clone" product, and your "competing" product had to be withdrawn from the market.
Back when there were lots of little companies producing spreadsheets and office apps that competed with MSOffice, developers had to be very careful about their choice of tools.
Eric Baird
Do Yahoo still have that clause saying that the service mustn't be used to make comments critical of Yahoo or their owners or affiliates?
Eric Baird
gives FaceBook the right to generate abstracts, snapshots, thumbnail previews etc for the purposes of running and promoting the site.
The earlier part of the terms of service says that you give
In other words, is seems that they can probably do anything with the material on the site that they like, including selling it as stock photography (and keeping the proceeds), or subcontracting another company to sell the content as stock photography on their behalf (and keeping the proceeds). You can't object that they haven't paid you for the right to use the material, because you've granted them those rights with "fully paid" status.
The agreement also seems to try to legally protect them from liability in the eventuality that they sell on material uploaded by a user that has other rights rights attached. If you upload a good holiday photo of the Eiffel Tower, and Facebook sells the image to postcard and teeshirt manufacturers, and a French company complains that they own all rights to merchandising that displays images of the Tower and that FaceBook are therefore breaking the law by printing or licensing those products, then Facebook can say that they aren't liable - you are. Facebook can pass your details to the lawyers suing them and say, "It's not our fault, it's the nasty user who uploaded the photo and clicked a box assuring us that they were legally in a position to grant us full and unrestricted rights to use it however we saw fit."
So their lawyers can say that Facebook isn't liable for misuse of the image of the Eiffel Tower (or your fan photo of you posing with Britney Spears, or your nice photo of that "Coca Cola" billboard), and that the person who needs to be sued by the third-party company over the offending postcards and teeshirts is the person who uploaded their holiday pics to Facebook. And here's their ID, their email address, their date of birth and their home address.
One final warning: if you're with one of these companies and you decide that this state of affairs is unacceptable and try to quit, then don't just delete your account and assume that your page and its content will be deleted. It doesn't necessarily follow. The company will want as many personal pages as possible, and you're still liable for the content, so why should they take your page down once you've gone? Once you've quit, you've removed the ability to go back in and change your page settings. So if you're going to quit, first edit your page to be an innocuous placeholder that doesn't give the game away ("under construction"?), then quietly delete the rest of your content, wait a few days, and only then consider starting the account deletion process. Better yet, get advice from someone who's already been through the process. Remember under the terms of the agreement, your page is not your page. It's their page. It just happens to be about you and written by you. They may be under no obligation to remove it once you've ceased to be a customer.
PS: IANAL
Eric Baird
"Congratulations, your CIS contract is now with AOL. Don't worry, nothing will change. Have you considered switching to AOL? AOL is Grrrrrreat for kids! Why haven't you switched yet? Are you having technical problems switching? Don't worry, in order to improve your online experience, we'll do it for you ... Wow, thank you for choosing AOL!"
Corporate buyouts can be bad news. You sign with Company B because you don't want to have anything to to with Company A, and then the company that you were trying to avoid buys the one you signed with, and you find yourself with a contract with them anyway. Grrr.
Eric Baird