Leaning with Intent

EULA’s

Computer users by this time probably got used to end-user license agreements. They basically tell you what you can do, and what you cannot do with the software. However, there are a lot of unfair EULA’s and as consumers we shouldn’t tolerate that. As a matter of fact, this year a UK consumer group has asked the Office of Fair Trading to investigate over a dozen of software companies on the grounds that their product license agreements were both confusing and unfair to consumers. How about you, did you ever read a EULA that would be confusing? I tell you the truth I don’t think I read one that was not confusing, because they are usually many pages long and written in a complicated way. Another problem is that many programs do not mention that you need to accept the EULA to install the software. In other cases the EULA is difficult to find, so you have to actually install the product, but after you do so you cannot return the software, even if you find out that the EULA is unfair. Let’s hope that the Office of Fair Trading will force software developers to make some changes which will benefit all of us.