The National Consumer Council (NCC) performed a shopping survey of software and the process of agreeing to the terms of the license agreement. Some of the agreements offered near impossible terms, and gave the provider the right to discontinue service or even delete personal data on a whim.

When a consumer purchases software and installs it,he or she is usually presented with a box requiring them to read and accept the terms of service or end user license agreement (EULA). This enters the consumer into a legally binding contract with the software provider.

Carl Belgrove oversaw a study entitled “Whose License is it anyway?” for the NCC. His team studied 25 popular software products chosen from six common categories: security and anti-virus, digital media, office suites, lifestyle and hobbies, games, and educational. Each piece of software was purchased individually from an online retailer and installed. Each step of the process was noted, and the practice of the EULA was examined.

Belgrove found that many of the licenses are mostly legal jargon. The licenses also contained terms that were near impossible to interpret even for people who understood the jargon, protecting the interests of the provider at the detriment of the purchaser. Using ambiguous terms allows the provider to dictate the actual conditions as they please. Many of the licenses left it up to the consumer to check with local laws in order to fully comply with the agreement.

Symantec’s Norton 360 anti-virus had a clause indicating that Symantec could at any time choose to discontinue service and delete personal data for suspicion of wrongdoing. The clause read: ” Symantec may, at its sole discretion, immediately suspend or terminate use of the Online Backup Feature for failure or suspected failure to comply with these terms and conditions or any other misuse or suspected misuse of the Online Backup Feature. Following the expiration or termination of the Service Period, Symantec shall not be obligated to maintain any Data stored through the Online Backup Feature, forward such Data to You or a third party, or migrate such Data to another backup service or account.”

The same agreement alluded to the fact that Symantec could alter the service at any time without notification of any changes. This is a program that consumers rely on to protect their important personal and corporate data secure from viruses and other intruders.

I honestly cannot remember the last time I read through an EULA, I’m not even sure I have ever completely read one. I do know that most of them are full of redundant general statements that obviously perform two functions; confuse people so that they don’t know what the hell they are reading, and protect us in case we screw up really bad.

There is an obvious unfair advantage to the software providers to dictate when and how the law will apply. Many of the statements are ambiguous to the point of it being ridiculous. One of the software packages in the study actually stated: “If any provision of this licence is found to be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable a substitute provision will replace the invalid condition, such as comes closest to the intended purpose.” What this says to me is that if something in the license is not in accord with local law, the rights owner can present a new one to substitute. Now I’m no lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that if a corporation gets to substitute provisions, they can pretty much say anything they want to in it.

This is just another case of corporate bullying.

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Entry was posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 at 8:32 am under Legal, Software.

Read more entries by Ken Mitchell.
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