The UK “National Consumer Council”:http://www.ncc.org.uk/ (NCC) issued a report on Feb 19th, 2008 questioning the legality of End User Licensing Agreements (EULAs). “This investigation”:http://www.ncc.org.uk/news_press/pr.php?recordID=377&PHPSESSID=a74528341fdfa9cd82fd9badf1a8721c corroborates findings from German and Norwegian research that companies exploit consumers using the language in these documents.
In “an article”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7252707.stm on the BBC, Carl Belgrove of the NCC said: “Consumers can’t have a clue what they’re signing up to when some terms and conditions run to 10 or more pages… There’s a significant imbalance between the rights of the consumer and the rights of the holder.”
The NCC examined 25 different software packages, it listed the 17 in “this report”:http://www.ncc.org.uk/nccpdf/poldocs/NCC195rr_whose_licence.pdf as being unfair to consumers:Adobe, Microsoft, Apple, Chief Architect, Symantec, Magix, Nero, Corel, Sega, Nova Development, Britannica, Sonic Solutions, Twelve Tone Systems, THQ, GSP, McAfee, Kaspersky. The NCC claims these companies shift the weight of responsibility “onto users”:http://blogs.computerworld.com/u_k_will_investigate_microsoft_for_consumer_rights_violations through unclear and complex legal jargon, termination rights for service providers, and the right to end coverage without notification.
In some cases, the BBC “notes”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7252707.stm that users are required to install the software before having a chance to read the EULA in the first place. The next step for the NCC is to present the problem to the UK’s Office of Fair Trade (OFT) and hope that they support user rights better than manufacturers.
StopBadware’s software guidelines address the need for clear disclosure in EULAs – we “believe”:http://www.stopbadware.org/home/guidelines#eula “EULAs and privacy policies should be written in as understandable a manner as possible.” Companies should be open with consumers about the nature and extent of actions implemented by software.
Hopefully, the OFT shares this view.
