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EULAs More Difficult to Read than Tax Forms 268

Posted by timothy from the this-is-not-by-accident dept.
krugdm writes: "Mark Hochhauser has an article over at CNet where he talks about the readability of the legalese used in EULAs and what motivates people to just 'Click to Accept' without reading a word of the agreement. He actually did a readability study where he determined that most EULAs are more difficult to read than a 1040."
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EULAs More Difficult to Read than Tax Forms More

EULAs More Difficult to Read than Tax Forms

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  • 1040 (Score:3, Funny)

    by miracle69 ( 34841 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @05:11PM (#3411822)
    Isn't the new wording on the 1040 as follows?

    1: How much did you make last year? _____

    Instructions: Send amount listed on line 1 to IRS.

    • 1040EZ (Score:2, Funny)

      by docbrown42 ( 535974 )
      That's the 1040EZ. The regular 1040 form is now: 1: How much did you make last year? _____ Instructions: Send twice the amount listed on line 1 to IRS.
    • How about:
      1: Are you a large corporation? ____
      If no:
      Please send all your earnings to IRS
      If yes:
      Gosh, sorry sir, didn't mean to disturb you,
      please carry on as you were

  • ::blink:: (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AstynaxX ( 217139 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @05:11PM (#3411824) Homepage
    OK, this is going to be said a -lot-, but hasn't this topic popped up before around here? [On another note, does it -really- surprise anyone? After all, there is -far- less motivation for the average software company to make EULAs readable than there is for the IRS to make its tax forms readable]

    • Yea, I'm positive that this has been posted before. Can't find it in the archives though.

      • Re:::blink:: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by ShadeEagle ( 153172 )
        The older post links to a different article.

        Same general idea, though.

        http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/04/18/1249 20 7&mode=nested

    • Re:::blink:: (Score:5, Insightful)

      by John Hasler ( 414242 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @05:17PM (#3411876) Homepage
      "After all, there is -far- less motivation for the average software company to make EULAs readable than there is for the IRS to make its tax forms readable."

      Not true. Incomprehensibility of the forms is no excuse for not paying your taxes, but incomprehensible contracts are in severe danger of being ruled unenforceable.

      • Re:::blink:: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by AstynaxX ( 217139 )
        True, but you miss the issue. The IRS makes more money if most folks understand their forms. Then, those poor saps who didn't have no one to support them when they get reamed. [See the not too far past 'tax law reforms' that led to the 'kinder, gentler' IRS for what occurs when just about -everyone- says they can't fathom the forms]

        Software houses, however, -want- people to glaze over and just click yes, because then they can screw them badly [as long as their lawyers are decent, they can defend the 'comprehensibility' aspect far more easily than a user can defend not bothering to even try]
        • [as long as their lawyers are decent, they can defend the 'comprehensibility' aspect far more easily than a user can defend not bothering to even try]
          I wonder about that. Actual court decisions on EULA's have been pretty rare so far, and far from one-sided except when the infringer was pretty clearly infringing more than just the EULA.

          The real question is, what does it take to get your defense against a claimed EULA infringement (breach of contract would be the actual allegation, I suppose) in front of a jury. Once the jury gets the idea that the software vendor used 3,000 words to say that you don't actually own the software you paid for, I don't have much doubt as to the verdict.
          • There was that court case against (Symantec?) where the State of New York ruled that they couldn't use the EULA to make sure they got good reviews - and they had to pay a fine for each illegal EULA they had.
          • I'll get together with one of my friends. I will write a nice little program that prints out "Hello World" in 20 different languages. Very nifty, no? Now, I will sell it to my friend for $1 and have him click 'Yes' on the EULA I provide. Said EULA says that the person who agrees to it must hand over all their personal posessions to me. He, obviously, refuses. Then we go to court and after he wins, we set some small precedence that EULAs aren't worth the phosphors they're displayed on. After that, we do it all over again with a EULA that, while still over the top, is not quite as extreme. Rinse, lather, repeat. Eventually we'll start getting to EULAs that resemble the ones actually in use today but it'll be only slightly different from the previous case and there'll be this huge log of cases ruling in the user's favor.

            It goes without saying that in this scenario, my friend and I can afford lots of lawyer time and have nothing better to do.

        • The IRS isn't necessarilly run entirely to bring in money for the government. It's also there to benefit lawyers (as are a lot of laws) and acoountants. They actively lobby to make these things more complicated, so that people will have to pay them rather than do it themselves.


          Even the software industry is now getting in the act. Quicken, for example, argues that simplifying the tax code will be an unfair attack on its business of selling programs that calculate your tax for you.

  • Most people already know (atleast I do) that the EULAs are unreadable essays of legaleese BS. I've never yet finished reading an entire EULA.


    What they want you to know, they flood you with thought, TV ads, radio ads, banner ads, and big popup windows... what the DONT want you to know they hide inside the shell of legal Jargon that makes up the License Agreement.

    • Re:There is nothing new there... (Score:5, Funny)

      by tchuladdiass ( 174342 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @05:35PM (#3412012) Homepage
      Actually, I've got a solution for EULAs. I go ahead and click Accept, then I fire off an email to the support line along the lines of "By receiving this email, you accept my modifications to your EULA as follows...", and follow it with my own terms. I follow it up with "By not re-writing your EULA, you affirm that the above exceptions are valid".

      Should be about as valid as their license...

    • the article answers all theese burning questions about what the EULA's say very well

      I know if you go to terms of service, it pretty much says, "You can't sue us for anything." That's pretty much what they say in 8,000 words.


      there ya go, next time you cant figure out what it's trying to say, just assume it says the above ;)

  • Deja vu all over again. . . (Score:3, Redundant)

    by Betelgeuse ( 35904 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @05:14PM (#3411849) Homepage
    Do I get extra points if I link to the Slashdot article that talked about this before [slashdot.org]?
    • Only if I get extra points for being the first one to point out that your's links to the wrong article... ;)

  • Makes you wonder why the IRS makes its forms generally unreadable...

    Then again, it's probably because the tax code is so complicated.

    • Re:Why unreadable (Score:5, Insightful)

      by markmoss ( 301064 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @05:59PM (#3412177)
      There are three separate issues in tax forms. One is that most of the public school teachers teaching math don't really understand it, so most Americans are pretty much innumerate. If your mind freezes up every time you see more than three addition or subtraction operations, there isn't much chance of you understanding any tax form no matter how simple.

      Second, if you are numerate, the IRS forms are generally as clear as they can make it while following the laws that a bunch of damned lawyers in Congress wrote. But those laws are generally written to obscure the point rather than to clarify it -- your congressman doesn't want to make it too clear that he designed a particular deduction so that only one corporation in the whole US can use it...

      Third, there are a lot of people who do understand the intent of the forms and tax laws, but want to know how much cheating they can get away with. The exact limits of things like legitimate business travel expenses are hard to define, but many people are way over any reasonable line. You know -- fly to Hawaii, have a five minute business discussion, stay a week, deduct it all as business expenses. If your question is, can I get busted for that -- I sure hope so!
      • I think another issue is the form designers are boring accountants, not programmers. A lot of times the procedure to compute your taxes isn't that hard, but they always present it in a linear column format, and they always use "line numbers" for values, which removes any meaning. You quickly get lost trying to juggle all of the meaningless numbers.

        It's like writing an algorithm in binary machine code instead of a readable language. If they would just structure the form like a flowchart or indented program, and use real variable names instead of line numbers, it would all be much easier for everyone to understand.

        • If they would just structure the form like a flowchart or indented program, and use real variable names instead of line numbers, it would all be much easier for everyone to understand.
           I disagree. You need to get out and deal with non-programmers more...
          • I disagree. You need to get out and deal with non-programmers more...

            I guess you're right. Ordinary people thrive on long meaningless columns of numbers with cryptic numerical cross references and instruction steps that lack any context. Programmers are the only people who can't handle such a wonderful system. I'm sorry I suggested any changes.

      • You're right. Innumeracy is actually a pretty large problem that is generally unknown by the public. One hears of lots of "literacy" programs that help to teach people to read. But I've never heard of a single program to help those who are deficient in math.

        As for the travel example you gave - my employer (Lawrence Livermore Nat'l Lab) has made it a no-no to take personal travel while on foreign business travel. I think they were having people go to England to "just" attend a conference, tacking on some vacation, and having the Lab pay for most of the hotel and all of the airfare.

  • The real problem... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bluprint ( 557000 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @05:15PM (#3411863) Homepage
    This guy really misses the point. I don't have a problem with this theory if they're writing for other lawyers. But if they're writing for kids online, it makes no sense to have a 3,000-word policy written at a college-reading level.

    The reality is, this stuff is written for other lawyers. Why? Because when there is a disagreement, lawyers and judges (higher up lawyers) will be making arguments/decisions pertaining to the confilict.

    A EULA that says "Do you promise not to give this game to all your friends?" just won't do.

    It's not the lawyers fault as much as it's the fault of, as the interviewer put it, the "litigious culture".
    • "A EULA that says "Do you promise not to give this game to all your friends?" just won't do."

      Of course it won't. Then if you gave the game to N-1 of your friends you would have followed the EULA. "But your honor, the EULA said not to give the game to all my friends; I didn't give it to my friend Alice, just Bob and Carol"

      of course Alice intercepted it but thats a different subject.

    • Re:The real problem... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by inerte ( 452992 )
      Doesn't prevent from having two versions. One that resumes the EULA, that explains in plain english what 3000 words mean.

    • Re:The real problem... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Arandir ( 19206 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @05:57PM (#3412163) Homepage Journal
      It's not the lawyers fault as much as it's the fault of, as the interviewer put it, the "litigious culture".

      No, I think it's the lawyers. There is a litgious culture, but that's the result of the lawyers. I read a book once called "What They Don't Teach You At Harvard Law School", or something like that. It's basic premise was that lawyers are trained from day one to look for problems, but they are never taught how to look for solutions. So we have ended up with a legal culture that is geared to search for problems, but with no idea how to solve them except to sue.

      Yesterday Sybase submitted a license for approval to the OSI. It was essentially the Apple APSL, with an additional clause requiring distributions to use click-wrap or use-wrap to indicate a manifestation of assent. (use-wrap: "by using this software, which you already have the legal right to use, you agree to...") Such a clause is completely unnecessary for Open Source Software, and I hope it doesn't get approved. I can envision only two rationales for this clause: 1) Sybase is petty, and doesn't want people using their free-beer software unless they bow before the all holy legal department; or 2) they think the clause is necessary simply because every other proprietary company has it.

      Their stated rationale for the clause was that the Sprecht versus Netscape decision disallowed binding contractual obligations unless the recipient of the aforementioned unilateral imposition of terms was assented to by the user. Duh! Sybase just doesn't get it.
    • The reality is, this stuff is written for other lawyers. Why? Because when there is a disagreement, lawyers and judges (higher up lawyers) will be making arguments/decisions pertaining to the confilict.
      But it's supposed to be a contract that the user accepts by clicking the "OK". Making a contract requires an exchange of considerations and a "meeting of minds" about the terms. If the terms are unintelligible to the user, it should be void. Or it should very clearly say, "if you don't understand this, you should get a lawyer to review it before going on, since by clicking "OK" you are signing a legal contract."

      Worse, with some of these EULA's, I don't think my lawyer could understand it, I don't think the local district court judge would even try to understand it, I'm sure there's at least one Justice of the Supreme Court that cannot understand it, and I seriously doubt the lawyer who wrote it understands it!

  • No surprise... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Deagol ( 323173 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @05:15PM (#3411864) Homepage
    The directions for a bottle of shampoo or a box of Hamburger Helper are more complex than a 1040! I mean really, is this all that surprising? Most tax forms seem pretty straight-forward to me.

    Now, if the tax code (the laws themselves) were easier to understand than a standard EULA, then this would be news. :)

    • The difference is that even if it says on the back of a PertPlus bottle "We own your car" the company can't just call a tow truck and arrange a delivery time.


      Some silly people think that the EULA should be a legally binding document. It rarely is, but tell that to the software industry. A contact is something you sign using ink and a pen, and date. Clicking "I Agree" is not a legally binding contract that's ever been upheld by the courts.

      • Sorry, but verbal contracts are legally binding in most states. And clicking "I Agree" might be construed as more reflective than saying "Oh, yeah, sure, you got it"...
        I hate EULAs as much as anyone here, but unfortunately I'm not quite sure they're illegal.

    • Re:No surprise... (Score:4, Funny)

      by TrumpetPower! ( 190615 ) <ben@trumpetpower.com> on Thursday April 25, 2002 @06:21PM (#3412339) Homepage

      The directions for a bottle of shampoo...are more complex than a 1040!

      ``Lather. Rinse. Repeat.'' Are you sure you've got the right bottle?

      b&

    • The directions for a bottle of shampoo...

      Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

      Which is why C programmers spend so long in the shower, trying to resolve this infinite loop.

  • Don't even bother with the EULAs. Get a young person ( < 18 ) to install all your software for you. You don't agree to the EULA, and they can't be legally bound. Everybody wins!

    The_Shadows[LTH], out.
    • What if I get my cat to click the Agree button? Although he doesn't seem to interested in the mouse ;-)
    • My artificial intellinge program (macro that clicks "next") agrees to all the software licenses I install.
  • The 1040 in question was the 1040 EZ, which you can see here: http://www.cedar.buffalo.edu/NABR/1040EZx2.gif [buffalo.edu]. This form has 17 fields to fill out (not counting name and address and a couple other gimmies). An EULA tries to cover the gamut of legal possibilities. This little analysis is ignorant. An EULA is always going to be somewhat complex. The key to a usable EULA (which the issuer doesn't want, btw) is using layman's terms.

  • There's a good reason for that... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Rorschach1 ( 174480 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @05:18PM (#3411889) Homepage
    The IRS wants you to understand the 1040 and to fill it out correctly. Most companies don't want or don't expect you to read the EULA, and it'll stay like that as long as we let them get away with writing outrageous EULAs which carry the force of law and require all sorts of insane concessions on the part of the user.
  • I remember once installing a program with a EULA that scrolled at a set speed. It's probably the only EULA that I've read in its entirety, but it was dead boring. I almost just decided to hit cancel and be not install.

    But its not just EULAs, I don't think most people read many of the contracts they sign.

  • From the article ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ProfMoriarty ( 518631 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @05:19PM (#3411895) Journal
    It seems ad-supported software preys on people's urge to try to get something for nothing. Do these adware companies appeal to our lowest urges?
    Yes. Anything that says "free," people want. But eventually people will realize there's not really such thing as "free" software. It comes with a price--in this case the annoyance of advertising, or possibly privacy violations.

    Emphasis mine ...

    What's this guys address so I can send him a distro of Linux?

    • What's this guys address so I can send him a distro of Linux?

      Make sure you send him the source along with the binary, or you can go to jail, and then you'll have a whole new definition of "free".

  • Question for any (pseudo)lawyers out there... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @05:19PM (#3411896) Homepage
    Does clicking "OK" to an EULA actually mean anything legally? I can't see how it can be binding, because there's no record of a signature (not even a digital one). There's no recorded date, or identity of who clicked the mouse.

    ... and if it's not legally binding, then why should I bother to read it?
    • I can't see how it can be binding, because there's no record of a signature (not even a digital one). There's no recorded date, or identity of who clicked the mouse.
      IANAL, but assuming the software vendor can prove the software cannot be installed without clicking the mouse, I doubt that the date matters. So do you think you can convince the court that some unauthorized person snuck in and installed the software, and you were too dumb to wonder how it got there?

      You've got a much better case arguing that the EULA is unintellible to layman (and unclear to lawyers also), that it does not make it clear that it _is_ a legal contract and you ought to get a lawyer to review it and that you have the right to refuse the contract and get a full refund if you don't like it, that requiring a lawyer just to buy game software is unreasonable, and that the EULA terms violate several clauses of the UCC as implemented in your state. If you can get a judge that isn't in corporate pockets...

    • Does clicking "OK" to an EULA actually mean anything legally?

      No, perhaps not, but consider this: if you don't consider it binding, you have a cdrom and packaging, but no right to copy the data thereon. Purchasing the product entitled you to the former, but the EULA entitles you to the latter. If you use the product, you're asserting that you are willing to consider the EULA binding, or that you're a criminal: copyrighted material from the disc will be copied on your computer.

      The gamble is that EULA's will be ruled enforceable because of the impossibility of ruling that all the computer users who use copyrighted software are infringing on copyright.

      • No, perhaps not, but consider this: if you don't consider it binding, you have a cdrom and packaging, but no right to copy the data thereon.
        Er, if copying the data from a CD you own to a computer you own isn't fair use, then I don't know what is (at least for the time-being).

        • You're correct, but don't overlook the practicality of the situation: What bearing do things like copyright protection and the DMCA have on the situation? Can you write a tool to ensure your fair-use, or would you have to break the law by acquiring one from a trafficker?

      • Re:Question for any (pseudo)lawyers out there... (Score:4, Informative)

        by bnenning ( 58349 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @07:05PM (#3412660)
        No, perhaps not, but consider this: if you don't consider it binding, you have a cdrom and packaging, but no right to copy the data thereon.


        I don't know how this meme got started, but it's entirely false. See 17 USC 117 [cornell.edu]; it is not a violation of copyright to make a copy of software if doing so is an "essential step" in using it.

        • You're correct, thank you for pointing that out.

          Please take into consideration the following: The DMCA outlaws the trafficking of circumvention devices, though you are allowed to circumvent copy-protection if it's the only way to use the product in the way you're entitled to. If you must circumvent copy protection, and you don't know how to write the tool, you must break the law by engaging a trafficker. You're still screwed.

  • .. and it's getting worse. I recently logged onto the American Airlines site. They asked me to agree to a usage agreement which, in printed form, is 5 pages long...of pretty small type.

    A lot of it has to do with what use I'm permitted to make of the site.. like not using "mileage aggregation services" and the like. But life is too short, and I've just abandoned my use of the site. But I hope this isn't a sign of worse to come.

  • Not 1040 (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Dudio ( 529949 )
    Actually, the article says "the Internal Revenue Service's 1040 EZ form was simpler to read"

    The 1040 EZ [irs.gov] isn't exactly college-level reading material. It's one fscking page for Chrissake!

  • Someone doesn't live in MA (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @05:20PM (#3411913) Journal
    Harder than a 1040, yeah, but nothing like Massachusetts state tax forms. Last year, when I took some capital gains losses, it required a worksheet that had (I am not making this up!) Steps A-Z, AA-ZZ, AAA, ZZZ and AAAA-OOOO. Around R, I realized that it was a recursive algorithm to offset losses against gains, solved it as best I could and hoped for the best.

    Anyhoo, back to the article --- I think the key to EULAs is, as Hochhauser said, trust. Of course no one reads those things. You assume that it's something along the lines of, "Don't install on more than one machine at a time. If something goes wrong, don't expect anything from us." and normally that's what you get.

    When Kazaa or other companies violate that trust, word gets around and the market enforces it eventually. People here have to realize that however much they obsess over licenses and privacy, most users including sophisticated users think current practices are perfectly adequate.

    What I get a kick out of with these Kazaa/Gator stories is how everyone suddenly forgets to pretend they're full-time Linux users... ;-)

    • What I get a kick out of with these Kazaa/Gator stories is how everyone suddenly forgets to pretend they're full-time Linux users... ;-)

      Actually, I think full-time linux users are rather uncommon, even in the slashdot crowd. Most people that go to work and use computers are faced with some incarna^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hversion of Windows. At home? We probably run a Linux/BSD box, a Windows box, and maybe even an OS X box, to get a nice variety (nobody but a geek would be proud that they have a computer for any program run in any language made for any operating system). The smarter ones run Windows in a virtual machine in Linux. Those who can't afford more than one machine, or need Windows to game, multi-boot between linux, win98, bsd, win2k, or maybe even (shudder) winxp.

      You also have to remember there are millions of readers on slashdot everyday. The "full-time Linux users" out there probably don't care to post on the stories about spyware in Windows. However, those that use KaZaA Lite at work (not naming names... I wouldn't want anyone at my company to get fired for it, especially not ME), are interested in the "Kazaa/Gator" stories, and will post on them.

  • How are these legal? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by redtoade ( 51167 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @05:20PM (#3411914) Homepage Journal
    When is someone going to take these things before a Judge? There is no way that pressing a button, or tearing shrink wrap can hold the same legal standing as a signature before witnesses.

    There is absolutely no way to prove who pressed the button is there? So how could this possibly be a legal "agreement?"

    • When is someone going to take these things before a Judge?

      It has already been before a judge. ProCD vs Zeidenberg The judge held that the EULA was a legally binding contracts. There have been other cases, e.g. Step-Saver, which held that they were not enforceable; but these had other factors, e.g. the software was bought with a P.O. with some standard legalese on it. The judge ruled that the P.O. was the binding contract.

  • USian problem (Score:5, Informative)

    by Krapangor ( 533950 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @05:22PM (#3411928) Homepage
    In Europe only parts a sales contract are legally binding if the customer can read them at the time he is buying the product.
    So all these clauses which pop up on install are irrelevant. And even printing on the cover "by buying this product you accept all clauses blablabla..." doesn't circumvent this (even if Microsoft says otherwise).

    Customer protection is better here.
    But our tax forms are more complicated.

    • So, how does one define "read"? You probably meant "understand." How does one prove understanding?

      It seems to me that in the type of contract you mention that it is a person's responsibility NOT to sign or accept a contract if he isn't completely certain of what (he thinks) it says. Makes sense to me. So to make the contract understandable, the company has to make some effort to write the contract clearly. Thus, in my view it seems in a way more of a matter of business and customer meeting in the middle in making an agreement.

      I think the situation with big business vs. little customer in U.S., especially with EULAs, is a clear contrast. You are presented up-front with the non-negotiable terms. The wording is such that the companies go out of their way to point out what rights you don't have (maybe it's just them 'CYA' I guess), using a rather dense lawyer-ese that I think people have grown numb towards. Still, it is the customer's responsibility not to accept the terms if they aren't clear.
  • My biggest problems with Federal tax forms is when they dumb-down the process too far ("Enter the value from line 11 into line 21 and subtract line 12 from line 20 and enter the result in line 37").

    If it doesn't make sense in my head, it's hard to verify that the result is at least ball-park accurate. On the whole I'd say the 1040 (EZ at least) is a pretty clean form; wish I could still use it!

  • This is gonna get /.'d quick but... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Britissippi ( 565742 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @05:25PM (#3411946) Journal
    Check out the handy dandy Eula Generator [geocities.com].

    Fun for all the family!

  • ... to make a piece of software, like a music sharing network, for example with a EULA that states 'anybody who works the RIAA must pay a mandatory license fee of 1,000,000,000,000,000 US dollars (or pesos) for starting this software.'

    I think if the RIAA were to target the legality of EULA's, it might draw their attention away from trying to take away our fair use rights.
  • I'm sure there are a couple of good lawyers/law students who could draft legislation detailing the requirements of a clear summary.

  • ...when you create an industry out of nothing, you need to justify its existence, right?

    Think of it. Everything around us is an illusion. We don't need EULAs, we don't need tax forms, we don't need so many of the inventions around us, we don't need insurance, we don't even really need currency, if you think about it. When people talk about the costs of such and such, how much does it really cost? How much does it really HAVE to cost?

    The world's been spinning for untold millions of years, and it's been doing it thus far without EULAs (et al). If everyone around the world had a collective moment of brain synergy, we could do away with so many things that a small, elite few would like us to think we need because in so needing it we must also need IP laws, lawyers to write them up, politicians to pass them, etc. And in order to keep needing them, we need to make them more complicated, so that as they evolve there is always new stuff to have to learn about them, and more and more reason to justify the expense of these maintainers of unnecessary pyramids.

    Think of it this way. Up here in Canada, we cannot simplify our tax laws, despite the fact that nobody sane likes our tax forms. If we simplified them, we would horrendously cripple our tax industry and infrastructure, which bobs along based ENTIRELY UPON the fact that the tax laws are complicated, and as such necessitates the cost of accountants and tax lawyers and politicians etc. We have an entire industry that supports these people, and it would collapse if we had a central computer take care of it all for us, which is entirely within the realm of comprehension. As a result, there's this nebulous morphing tax industry which everyone BELIEVES is necessary. You Americans, with your massively entrenched legal system, are feeling the same phenomenon from a different standpoint.

    The world is bloat. Sorry if that sounds a little nihilistic.
  • If companies had to pay me to read their EULA, I guarantee they would shorten it up and make it readable.

    Punch the monkey! Punch the monkey!
  • blockqoute:
    It seems ad-supported software preys on people's urge to try to get something for nothing. Do these adware companies appeal to our lowest urges?
    Yes. Anything that says "free," people want. But eventually people will realize there's not really such thing as "free" software. It comes with a price--in this case the annoyance of advertising, or possibly privacy violations

    Sorry, there really is such a thing as free software. I run most of my business on it. Most of it is even free as in beer. But the important thing is that it's also free as in freedom.

    The reason I can trust it, is because I can examine the source myself. I do for some of the software I use. I contribute bug fixes back for the software I know how to fix, and is important for me to have fix. The web of trust in the open source community gives me assurance that others are doing the same for software I don't personally check.

    I don't suffer 'the annoyance of advertising, or possibly privacy violations.' All thanks to truly FREE software.

  • 1 Thing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by NitsujTPU ( 19263 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @05:46PM (#3412084)
    I read this article before. They are comparing EULA's to form 1040-EZ.

    For anybody who hasn't done US Taxes before, 1040-EZ is written to be SIMPLE. You have to fill out a different form if you want to do anything other than put in how much you earned and get a number back for how much you owe.

    I filled out one of these in elementary school as part of a tax class. No offense, but if they are going to write an article saying that EULA's are hard to understand, then they should have picked a tax form that uses words bigger than 2 syllables.
  • Personally, I'm all in favor of license agreements that are simple and non-restrictive.

    However, the reason for contracts like this is all the lawsuits over the years that consumers and other people that have brought that set picyune precedents like "they didn't say that the contract was severable, so I assumed that since one part was obviously invalid the whole thing was invalid".

    These lawsuits are how we end up with contracts and EULA's like this.

    Whether this is the lawyers' fault or the consumers, or the politically motivated consumer protection groups, or the stupid juries that agree with this kind of crap, I couldn't tell you. Probably a bit of each.

    The only way to avoid stuff like this is to stop being a litigious society.

    Good luck...

  • Language? (Score:3, Funny)

    by martyb ( 196687 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @05:50PM (#3412106)

    Given the increasing globalization of the internet, it just hit me that all the EULAs and privacy policies I've seen are written in English. (Granted, I don't do much surfing on non-English pages.) This seems such an obvious loophole, but what if the EULA were written in a different language?

    I'd assume there's a requirement that these agreements must be readable by the user... but some I've seen could as well have been written in a different language.

    I wonder how long I'll need to wait for somebody to come out with an agreement written in one of these languages: Hacker [google.com], Bork! Bork! Bork! [google.com], Elmer Fudd [google.com], or Klingon [google.com] ;^)

  • Did that article contain anything interesting? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SIGFPE ( 97527 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @06:02PM (#3412196) Homepage
    I read through it. It told me nothing. EULAs are hard to read. Is that news? If some guy makes up some readability index and uses it to measure the 'readability' of a EULA do I learn anything new? I can tell how hard it is by reading it. An index is just pseudo-science.


    I can see how Hochhauser makes his money as a consultant. Someone presents him with a document and he charges $300/hr for calculating this index and that index. He'll put together a nice folder and a printed statement laying out the different scores - all looking very impressive. His report will end with a recommendation that the authors use shorter words and shorter sentences. And he probably has a PR department ensuring that he gets mentioned in articles on CNET, TV and radio.


    And that statement about there being no "free software" is a blatant lie too!

  • EULAs Should Use Preambles (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ltsmash ( 569641 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @06:04PM (#3412214)
    To an extent, EULAs will probably always be long and complicated. A EULA has to make sure it closes every loophole since lawyers are trained to exploit contracts. Realizing this, it would be great if EULAs gave a preamble or summary. For example, the preamble of the GPL [gnu.org] provides a great summary and explanation in layman's terms.

  • Real Problem: Multiple EULAs; Multiple Versions (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Titusdot Groan ( 468949 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @06:06PM (#3412223) Journal
    Imagine I have a Windows box, now Imagine I just recently reinstalled the OS, ah, but I repeat myself.

    Speaking of repeating ...

    The real problem is that if you install, for instance, Windows and Office, and patch them to current "safe" levels you will be asked to agree to about 20 different EULAs -- all slightly different. You have the original install, the patches (which can not be installed at the same time as any other patch), the upgrade of IE, etc. etc.

    Now add in installing all the basic tools; zip, adobe reader, netscape (:-), java ide, etc.

    By the time your machine is installed and usable you've "read and agreed" to about 100 different licenses, sometimes dozens from a single company.

    Reading and understanding 100 contracts of this nature is a full days job for a trained lawyer! It's an impossible task for the average consumer/programmer.

    It's time for clear laws that specify software liabilities (or lack thereof!) and prevent this kind of EULA overload that essentially forces you to either agree to everything or don't use the technology. I think we can all agree that not using the technology is not really a viable option for the bulk of people in today's society.

  • I can't imagine reading most of the documents that are presented to me each week.

    EULAs are just the start: every Microsoft patch and fix, on both my workstation AND my server, requires acceptance of yet another "license agreement" (and sometimes a single patch requires two acceptances of two different things). Ditto for my anti-virus software. Add a couple dozen different software applications (Quicken, Photoshop, PC Anywhere, Roxio Easy CD Creator, Eudora, Netscape, etc. etc.), each updated once or twice a year. Then add all the terms and conditions and privacy policies on each of the web sites I visit (hundreds? thousands?). What about the policies and terms for each email newsletter subscription? Don't forget online banking, online payment for my electric bill, separate online payment for my cable modem bill, and separate online payment systems for several other things. Then there's eBay, and its separate online billing (BillPoint) system, each with its own complex terms & policies. And PayPal.

    Offline: And that's just the online crap. Every other credit-card bill contains a multi-panel brochure with tiny 6-point type, likewise my bank statements.

    Don't forget the fine print warranties for every product we buy, plus the terms of any service contracts we buy for the equipment we buy, and the return policies at every store where we shop, and the agreement for our supermarket-club-cards.

    And don't even get me started on insurance policies: my health insurance company has sent me 3 complete policy revisions this year, 50+ pages each, plus every month new qualifiers, restrictions, and special terms, and then they reject valid claims and approve fraudulent claims anyway! Then there's car insurance, homeowners, life insurance, each of which are revised at least once a year. And who ever reads the fine-print waivers when you visit a doctor or hospital?

    God forbid you are a member of anything, even a homeowner's association, because then you have even more agreements and bylaws and policies. Or you are foolish enough to have kids, the paperwork multiplies again.

    And that doesn't cover everything, by far.

    Has anyone ever tried adding up the word counts for all these documents?

    I doubt that it is physically possible to actually read all this stuff.

  • They *don't want* you to read it (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gotan ( 60103 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @06:20PM (#3412333) Homepage
    I mean, presenting 20-40 lengthy paragraphs in tiny little windows, writing half of it in all-caps which is well known to be harder to read. That's not really an effort to inform the prospective user. Touchy stuff is buried deep in that texts, like with the recent spyware that disables adaware. It's in there to cover their asses, but obviously it is expected that these click-through-agreements are ignored. It would be interesting to see some of these "agreements" tested in court.

  • It's all about money (Score:3, Insightful)

    by stienman ( 51024 ) <adavis@@@ubasics...com> on Thursday April 25, 2002 @06:39PM (#3412476) Homepage Journal
    The IRS has actually spent time and money trying to make the tax code (which is harder to read than the average EULA) easy to follow with the various forms they've created.

    The average software shop doesn't care if their EULA is readable, and increasingly more companies like it that way. Providing a simplified explanation is not trivial, and has various legal landmines to navigate.

    So any comparison is not very reasonable - they are intended for completely different purposes, and one will necessarily be more difficult to understand than the other.

    -Adam

  • You can't usually return the software if you don't agree. If you can return it, it's usually going to cost you much more time than the amount you paid for it.

    Often, the EULA that comes with the software is out of date anyway: companies reserve the right to change terms and conditions at any point, so what you read and agree to may already be out of date. Do you have the time and interest to check whether there is a newer version? Most people don't.

    For most web sites, you are a fool if you give them any information you care about. For the few web sites where you need to give a correct address and a credit card number, reputation probably counts more than EULA, but there is one case where you might want to check about any unexpected charges and marketing tie-ins.

    Now, can anybody hold you to the EULA? Not really: unless you try to do something with the software that is somehow visible to other people, nobody knows that you are using the software, let alone that you have agreed to the EULA, so many provisions are meaningless. If you plan on reverse engineering the software, building applications with it, or linking with it, you might have to worry about it, but then, you might be better off not living in the US. And the law already protects you against highly one-sided contracts (Bill Gates may write into his EULA that you agree to be be his towel boy for a year, but he'd have a hard time enforcing that).

    Most of these problems and issues with EULAs are unrelated to their readability; even if they were highly readable, there still wouldn't be much point in reading them.

  • is because people don't percieve them as legally enforceable. They see it as some stupid BS that they have to click on to use the product they *already* purchased.

    EULA's are still largely untested in the courts.

    If it was a paper they were asked to sign.. that's another story.
  • If this were like the much accalimed "Day" as in "Back in the Day" things wouldn't be like this. EULAs would be simple. Usually things like, "If this destroys your computer, we'll buy you a new one." Or, "If we destroy your house trying to re-roof it, we'll pay for repairs." Now, its like, "If this destroys your computer, you must buy a new copy, and you cannot sue us, and you are entitled to no reimbursement." and "If we destroy your house, you have to pay us full price, and we are not responsible."
  • Legalese is everywhere around us. You see it when you install a piece of software, you see it when you pay your taxes. It's the world that is pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth...
  • [I]f they're writing for kids online, it makes no sense to have a 3,000-word policy written at a college-reading level.
    Isn't that the point? If they're hiding something, they don't want the public to know about it. There was a recent article [slashdot.org] about how a company hid something in their EULA.
  • The producers are using this in an attempt to shirk their responsabilities.

    Nobody reads these pieces of ass-wad because there is no negotiation and no alternative. Basically, they are meaningless, unenforcable and totally useless.

    We all know that there is only ONE recourse and that is to burn Redmond to cinders and lynch Gates' minions. When that becomes an inevitable alternative, we'll do it. Until then, we'll put up with the crap we get because a) its not our software, its not important and we don't give a shit b) we don't have any choice.

    You could place clauses in there that would indicate that you wish to sell the user's better looking daughters into sexual slavery and render the rest of the family for the fat content and nobody would bat an eye because nobody would notice.

    But I'd have to ask for a front row seat to watch when the lawyers come to your door to cart away your daughters and melt the rest for lard. Can you say "bullets flying?"

  • Neither stupidity nor trust but pointlessness (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mlc ( 16290 ) on Thursday April 25, 2002 @08:44PM (#3413237) Homepage
    From the article:
    Take off your readability hat and put on your psychology hat. What are people thinking when they click "I agree"? Are they illiterate? Naive? Stupid?
    They're not stupid. They're trusting. It's actually quite similar behavior to sick people....
    I disagree with that analysis. Sure, maybe some people are really stupid, and a few are still naïve enough to believe that corporations really are interested in writing licenses that benefit both sides. But the reason that I don't read EULAs (or most other things I sign) is that there's no point in wasting my time. I can't negotiate with the company if there's a term in the EULA I don't like. Either I accept the license, or I don't get the product or service they're offering.

    Take a real-world contract I just signed, for next year's housing [columbia.edu] at my school. Now, the way it works here is that you go into a room and pick the housing you want, then take a card over to a couple people with computers who will print out a contract for you to sign, and hand you a 6-page booklet of terms and conditions [columbia.edu]. Now, I happen to have looked through that booklet a while ago, so I knew there was a clause (clause X) I don't like:

    The University reserves the right to enter an assigned space for reasons of health, safety, or emergency; for the purpose of insuring compliance with these
    Terms and Conditions of Residence; for inventory; and for making necessary repairs.
    So, I asked the guy if I could amend the booklet to strike that clause. Of course, I couldn't. So my only alternative would be to not sign the contract and then try and find an apartment in New York for $700/month.

    What did I gain from reading the contract? Absolutely nothing, just knowing that I'm screwed. I'm screwed whether I know it or not, so why shouldn't I just save my time and not read the contract? It was a nice day---I'd rather be outside than wading through a 6-page booklet of legal mumbo jumbo that I can't change.

    • "But the reason that I don't read EULAs (or most other things I sign) is that there's no point in wasting my time. I can't negotiate with the company if there's a term in the EULA I don't like. Either I accept the license, or I don't get the product or service they're offering."

      Actually a better reason is you either click the button or you can't use the software you just paid for. The fact is you already purchased the right to use the software when you picked it up from Best Buy.

      They can't add on additional caveats after you already purchased the software.

      So the reason people click "I Agree" is because the EULA doesn't mean jack.. it's non enforcable since it takes place after-the-sale.
  • See http://www.osdn.com/terms.shtml [osdn.com] to see what I mean by "verbose." It might not be a 1040-GvMny, but it isn't "don't do anything stupid" either.
    Why is so much attention given to EULA/*PL's, and not website TOS's?

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