Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for February 07, 2022

I’m pretty sure the buttons are “take it” or “leave it”.

I suspect that I’m one of the only people on earth who have ever actually read the WHOLE EULA. Of course, I was younger then… and the EULAs were shorter too. And I only did it once…

He a better lawyer than most if he has the time to read it and can even make the least bit of sense of the EULA.

Why bother? The gist is clear enough – you either accept the terms with no revisions, or you can’t use the product.

I especially like the stipulation that you are deemed to have accepted the terms of the EULA before you have even read it.

He’s just pissed that he can’t bill someone for it

Given how FB share price has tanked I suspect a lot of people have decided they don’t like the terms.

Or, to give a lawyer’s answer – “Yes – and no.”

Go ahead Bob. You can always sue them for Malware of Forethought.

Dammed if you do, dammed of you don’t.

Somewhere on MS Word’s EULA it states we do not have permission to write any thing libel.

I went to get a software update in my car and there was no EULA for me to sign. And it took TWO HOURS to download and install. I wanted to ask if MS had written the update – and if they were still using VISTA. 2 Hours?

Somewhere in the EULA it usually states that the product does not have to work and that if it damages your computer or causes a data breach – though luck, the company is not responsible.

Shakespeare was right: “First thing we do is Kill all the Lawyers…”

I was in at a conference with a poor IT guy who worked for a Law Firm that wouldn’t allow him to upgrade or change the routers and firewalls at the company. They were of the opinion that they purchased the equipment and protection for a lot of money, and they expected it to work correctly right out of the box. If it didn’t it was a manufactures defect and not their fault.

As the verbiage expands, the values decrease, and the satisfaction disappears. But, on the other hand, we get to let off steam among the tons of commenters who empathize with us. Great to be among such good company. We are not alone.

As one who typically installs software on other people’s computers, I sometimes wonder just what I am agreeing to in their name. Oh well.

By the time they change the agreement, i’ll have moved on to something else anyway.

They’ve got you between a rock and a hard place. If you don’t press “agree”, you can’t download the product or upgrade. What I don’t like is the gotcha that if you don’t like the upgrade, you can’t go back to the version that you did like.

I swear, every time, it looks to me like Bob is sitting in a high-backed chair. I just can’t see those as his shoulders

I should share this cartoon with my state legislator. If I knew who he was.

Nice try, Bob, but you’ve got no power to negotiate. You either agree, or you don’t use the software.

There’s a Monty Python skit about a liver donor. "You signed the donor card, it didn’t say ‘after your death.’ "

“Should use, ownership or abuse result in the destruction of life as we know it, the aforesaid corporation is in no way liable.”

I think that if you read all of the fine print that comes with computer software, it would take so long that you could never get anything else accomplished.

Then there was Steve Jobs wondering why the components of the Human CentiPad wouldn’t read their EULAs:

https://youtu.be/zVTsFKJ2nJE

https://youtu.be/NK56JNnC2IE

I can identify with this toon! Amusing!

Bob should know that the corporate lawyers a-l-w-a-y-s wins. They create the terms and conditions and we don’t have an iota of input.

My guess is that a lot of what’s in EULAs are unenforceable because the software companies know they’ve made them so long that no one actually reads them, regardless of checking the little box. A lot of the legalese baloney is just a smokescreen to make people THINK they’ve signed away their rights and would never stand up in courts.

It’s usually in the “arbitration clause” section, where they tell you any disagreements or changes to specific terms need to be filed in writing and mailed to a completely different address than the one the company normally operates from.

Also, if you use any Apple product, read the terms some time, specifically the section on “Export Control” or whatever it’s titled these days.

So if you say you don’t agree do they stop bugging you to upgrade all the time? Usually I find everything has upgraded without my saying yay or nay to anything.

It’s easy really … if anything goes wrong. it’s your fault. If it’s our fault, it’s your fault. If it’s faulty right out of the box, it’s your fault too.

Bob the lawyer looks like Nixon.

I’m with Bob on this one, though I recognize that, as in so many other cases, the corporate entities have the consumer over a barrel. I remember a few years ago when Yahoo updated their terms to include such absurdities as a forced arbitration clause and a clause forbidding the user from joining class action suits against the company. I didn’t agree to the terms for months, even though it meant constantly having to click on a “later” button when trying to read my email. Eventually I clicked “agree” by accident (and of course there’s no way to rescind that once you’ve clicked it). Both forced arbitration and no class action provisions have proliferated recently thanks to the pro-corporate Supreme Court, which acts as if agreements like these (and those between employers and employees) are really made freely by two equal parties. But as this example illustrates, all the power is on one side, allowing them to tell the user (or the employee) to take it or leave it, no negotiation or revision allowed.