In many ways, the End User License Agreements that we come face to face with everyday provide a peculiar problem - with respect to the principle of informed consent in Information Technology.
The aim of an End User License Agreement is, nominally, to ensure that the user be made aware of his or her legal responsibilities and duties with respect to a specific product. There are some fundamental problems with this style of agreement. The chief problem lies in the length, language, and presentation of the EULA. The agreements are often thousands of words long, and written in a legal style of language. The use of legal language is understandable, since the agreement is, essentially, a legal document that discloses terms and conditions in a legally binding manner. However, this makes it very difficult to read and understand by the users who wish to install the software. The length of the agreements also makes it difficult to read, since computer screens can only fit so much text on them before requiring the user to scroll down to read the next page. This, combined with the problem that the user interface of the EULA acceptance dialogue box usually squeezes the agreement text into a tiny part of the screen (as seen in Figure 2.1), means that the overall experience is not aimed at helping the user to read and understand the agreement; rather, the EULA is a way for a software company to disclose their legally obligatory terms and conditions with very little thought for the user who is trying to decide whether they should accept them. This has become standard practice throughout the software industry, essentially institutionalizing poor informed consent procedures that alienate and disadvantage the user while maintaining enough of a claim of informed consent to satisfy legal institutions. There are several studies that have shown that computer users do not actually read the contents of the EULAs, because of the above reasons. In one of these, a software designer tested this (somewhat facetiously, but the point stands) by including a clause in the EULA that offered a reward for writing into a particular email address. After over three thousand downloads and four months, one person finally wrote in to claim the reward [Source: Larry Migid's Study] Another study showed that users, although understanding they were entering into a contract, did not read the contents of the EULA, and when told the contents of the EULA after installation regretted installing the software [Source: Good et al.]. Further studies show that even if users did read the EULA and discovered some undesirable content within, they are likely to consider how the immediate benefits (instant gratification, completion of a task) outweigh the undesirable side-effects, especially when presented with ambiguous or uncertain language.
Therefore, this project aims to solve this one problem - by shortening and simplifying a number of End User License Agreements that will cover a wide number of people. This will help people be aware of their legal rights and responsibilities and users will be able to access EULAs that are easy to read and understand.
As of now, the twenty software licenses that have been simplified and shortened during the course of this project are:
NOTE: If you have any EULAs that you would like for us to convert, please use the feedback and request page.
The aim of an End User License Agreement is, nominally, to ensure that the user be made aware of his or her legal responsibilities and duties with respect to a specific product. There are some fundamental problems with this style of agreement. The chief problem lies in the length, language, and presentation of the EULA. The agreements are often thousands of words long, and written in a legal style of language. The use of legal language is understandable, since the agreement is, essentially, a legal document that discloses terms and conditions in a legally binding manner. However, this makes it very difficult to read and understand by the users who wish to install the software. The length of the agreements also makes it difficult to read, since computer screens can only fit so much text on them before requiring the user to scroll down to read the next page. This, combined with the problem that the user interface of the EULA acceptance dialogue box usually squeezes the agreement text into a tiny part of the screen (as seen in Figure 2.1), means that the overall experience is not aimed at helping the user to read and understand the agreement; rather, the EULA is a way for a software company to disclose their legally obligatory terms and conditions with very little thought for the user who is trying to decide whether they should accept them. This has become standard practice throughout the software industry, essentially institutionalizing poor informed consent procedures that alienate and disadvantage the user while maintaining enough of a claim of informed consent to satisfy legal institutions. There are several studies that have shown that computer users do not actually read the contents of the EULAs, because of the above reasons. In one of these, a software designer tested this (somewhat facetiously, but the point stands) by including a clause in the EULA that offered a reward for writing into a particular email address. After over three thousand downloads and four months, one person finally wrote in to claim the reward [Source: Larry Migid's Study] Another study showed that users, although understanding they were entering into a contract, did not read the contents of the EULA, and when told the contents of the EULA after installation regretted installing the software [Source: Good et al.]. Further studies show that even if users did read the EULA and discovered some undesirable content within, they are likely to consider how the immediate benefits (instant gratification, completion of a task) outweigh the undesirable side-effects, especially when presented with ambiguous or uncertain language.
Therefore, this project aims to solve this one problem - by shortening and simplifying a number of End User License Agreements that will cover a wide number of people. This will help people be aware of their legal rights and responsibilities and users will be able to access EULAs that are easy to read and understand.
As of now, the twenty software licenses that have been simplified and shortened during the course of this project are:
- 2K Games
- Activision Games
- Bethesda Softworks
- Capcom Co.
- Criterion Games
- Electronic Arts, Inc.
- Firaxis Games
- Infinity Ward Systems
- KOEI
- Konami Inc.
- LINE
- Mozilla Foundation
- Nintendo Corp.
- Oracle Corp.
- Relic Entertainment
- SEGA
- Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty
- Symantec Systems
- THQ Inc.
- Viber
NOTE: If you have any EULAs that you would like for us to convert, please use the feedback and request page.