This 'Robot Lawyer' Can Take the Mystery Out of License Agreements

DoNotPay, the "robot lawyer" service that helps you contest parking tickets and even sue people, is launching a new tool to help customers understand license agreements. From a report: Called "Do Not Sign," the service is included with DoNotPay's monthly $3 subscription fee, and it lets users upload, scan, or copy and paste the URLs of any license agreements they'd like to check. The service uses machine learning to highlight clauses it thinks users need to know about, including options to opt out from data collection. It's available starting today, November 20th, on the web and via DoNotPay's app on iOS. Agreeing to lengthy license agreements is an almost weekly occurrence for many people, with modern smart devices forcing you to hit "agree" on every new contract. Do Not Sign isn't a replacement for a real lawyer, but it's better than accepting a license agreement sight unseen so you can start using a shiny new gadget, service, or app without delay.

Subject to Change Without Notice

[WoodstockJeff]

Hopefully it flags these - I've had to refuse signing up for SiriusXM and several other "services" because that was in the TOS.

Re:Subject to Change Without Notice

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Of course, in 40 years of messing around with computers and working on them for a living, I have yet to see a license agreement enforced. Contracts that are subject to unilateral change are usually looked upon as fraudulent by the courts.

Re:

[jon3k]

I have yet to see a license agreement enforced

You've never seen a Microsoft SAM audit?

Re:

[Harald Paulsen]

I have yet to see a license agreement enforced

You've never seen a Microsoft SAM audit?

Microsoft Audits are voluntery. Just say no when they call to schedule one.

I still don't understand why people agree to doing them.

Re:

[jon3k]

Because if you refuse the next step is an LLC audit [storagecraft.com] which isn't optional.

Re:

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Nope. Lots of FUD around them, and I've worked a couple of places that likely deserved one, but for the most part, no.

And I don't consider their bounty to be enough to be worth my career to call.

Re:

[jon3k]

I have and I can assure you they are very real.

Re:

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I assume whoever turned the business in got his ass fired and got blacklisted by every contracting agency out there.

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[Kjella]

Of course, in 40 years of messing around with computers and working on them for a living, I have yet to see a license agreement enforced. Contracts that are subject to unilateral change are usually looked upon as fraudulent by the courts.

In terms of actual lawsuits? Yeah, they're rare both ways - but mostly because the consumer knows he's screwed. What happens is this: Companies put shit in the EULA and then they do it, like Microsoft and telemetry. Don't like it? Boo fucking hoo, we're doing it. Forced updates? Boo fucking hoo, we're doing it. There's often no way to opt out and even if it is they make it obscure and prone to reset back to doing what they want anyway. For example I refuse to link my Windows installation to an online accou

Re:

[HiThere]

Makes me glad I switched to Linux decades ago....I don't need to put up with any of that.

I didn't need an AI *or* a lawyer to tell me there were things in the license agreement I didn't want to agree to.

Re:

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Block *.Microsoft.com at your router, and you'll end all telemetry and updates pretty quickly.

Re:

[JMJimmy]

Contracts that are subject to unilateral change are usually looked upon as fraudulent by the courts.

No they are not. A long time ago a change in contract law was made to allow one to many contracts. Judges have upheld them even if the user cannot read the terms (a click wrap agreement) before purchasing

Re:

[Marxist Hacker 42]

When did that happen? I must admit, the last time I looked deeply into EULA contract law was 1998, when I wrote one and realized nearly all the clauses the company lawyer told me to put in, were so laughably unenforceable that a SLAPP would have broken it.

Re:

[The New Guy 2.0]

It's part of the nature of radio... channels like MTV Radio and ABC News/Talk Channel just didn't make it. That's what subject to change.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

DoNotPay's Terms and Conditions

[Anonymous Coward]

Soooo... who do I turn to regarding DoNotPay's terms and conditions [donotpay.com]? What happens if you copy and paste their terms and conditions into the DoNotSign bot?

Re:DoNotPay's Terms and Conditions

[110010001000]

I just tried it and it said it was fine. Must be legit.

Machine Learning

[cantsleep]

"The service uses machine learning to highlight..." --I do not think it means what they think it means.

Re:

[cusco]

Actually it probably does. This sounds like a test of AI and ML that was conducted a couple of years ago. 100 errors were sprinkled throughout a pile of complex contracts and a team of 10 contract lawyers and one trained AI undertook to find them. The AI found 90+ in under ten minutes, the lawyers found 70+ of them in nine hours. Don't see that particular test at the moment, but here's a smaller one from last year:
https://www.lawgeex.com/resour... [lawgeex.com]

What's the point?

[OldMugwump]

It's not as if these shrink-wrap license things are negotiable.

And if all you do is click "agree' without reading it, I'm not at all sure the thing is enforceable in court.

If you DO read it, it probably becomes more enforceable. But then I'm not a lawyer.

Re:

[r2kordmaa]

If you read it or not doesn't matter at all, after all if you sign a proper contract then it's equally irrelevant. A contract becomes no more or less valid depending on your knowledge of it's contents. The question is, would a EULA stand up as a contract at all and that's entirely dependent on local legislation. You don't really hear about companies trying to enforce a EULA in courts, so my guess is no, it wouldn't hold up in most cases.

Re:

[r2kordmaa]

Where EULAs do come in to play is when a user tries to sue the company, for example if the user sues for any damages caused by using the software, but the licence says the copyright holder is not liable for any such damages. Well, the user has already agreed he can't sue for such damages so good luck to him in the court.

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[Anonymous Coward]

A contract becomes no more or less valid depending on your knowledge of it's contents.

To be valid, a contract requires a meeting of the minds [wikipedia.org]. If you don't understand what's in the contract, you don't have that. If you've every purchased a home, this is why the make sure you understand each section, even if you don't read it.

Re:

[cusco]

In the late '90s one of the more popular techie web sites, Groklaw if I remember correctly, changed its EULA to include "By accepting this license agreement the user hereby agrees to give their first-born child into the perpetual care of the owners of this web site" in the third or fourth paragraph. After three months they removed it since in all that time, on that tech-law-oriented web site, no one had noticed.

Re:

[BranMan]

Groklaw still has my first-born, you insensitive clod!

Tempting

[Presence Eternal]

Three bucks a month is less than what my to do list services ask want for their premium features. We don't really do parking tickets in my area though.

Machines v. Machines

[C3ntaur]

How long until the producers of these EULAs and such start using machines to make the language even more confusing? Reminds me of the early days of virus v. anti-virus software.

Re:

[Cipheron]

That's possible, but they can't really change the wording too much. The EULA is mainly meant to protect the company if they're sued, by saying you agreed to let them do anything that you might possibly be upset about. It needs to be comprehensible to the courts. So they can have legal-ese but not make it outright unreadable or it defeats the purpose since they can no longer claim to the courts that it unambiguously covers the things it covers.

Is this how SkyNet starts?

[Mindragon]

I can see it now ... After millions of licensing agreements uploaded to DoNotSign...SkyNet has become self aware and issued the ultimate licensing agreements for human wetware.

Re:

[Joe_Dragon]

Turn your KEY, SIR!

Coming soon to EULAs near you

[Waffle Iron]

"Under no circumstances may you scan this agreement with any automatic license analysis tool. If you need any legal advice about this agreement, you agree to use one of our arbiters."

This, finally, is Skynet

[Applehu Akbar]

An AI that can understand license agreements is capable of unraveling any problem set before it - or if it prefers, simply ruling the world with an iron hand.

Disappointing.

[BAReFO0t]

I expected it to actually condense terms & conditions, contracts, etc, Creative Commons style.

By taking those of the top 1000 businesses in the country, having humans translate and condense them, extract similar clauses and clause differences and so on, so a machine can do most of other contracts automatically, and have people and temporarily, a neural net for vague pattern detection and most likely guess presentation, fill in the gaps over time, while the system learns.

This sounds like security theater

First we dissassemble all the robot lawyers

[WillAffleckUW]

When the revolution comes, and it will, we take the robot lawyers, we line them up against a wall, and we run them over with a steamroller.

Unless they help build the guillotines. We're going to need a lot of those.

My preference

[martinX]

I prefer single female lawyer.