Order Management

Would you buy a toaster if there was a chance, it might not work properly when you got it home? Well, probably. After all, anyone could end up with a dud.

But what if the toaster’s maker- let’s call it toastersoft- denied any responsibility for the product’s problems, defects, or hazards, even if it knew they existed?

Suppose Toastersoft asked you to promise not to try to fix the toaster on your own, instead offering to sell you a advice at $35 a pop. Your contract also stipulated that once you bought it, the toaster could not be sold, lent, or given away to anyone, nor could you complain publicly about any problems. Plus, Toastersoft might have conveniently neglected to disclose these rules until after making sure you’d paid for- and couldn’t return- the item.

Would you do business with anyone under those terms? You probably already have; that’s the way many companies sell their software today. Although few software companies include all of these provisions in one end-user license agreement (EULA), each condition of sale or use has appeared in some kind of software license. Simply by installing a new piece of software, you could be agreeing to many of these stipulations. In the case of freeware and shareware, in particular, installing the program may mean installing a piece of adware or spyware- a compelling reason to read the EULA.

Granted, it’s unlikely that some software company is going to sue you tinkering with its code or griping to a co-worker about its product. But if installing the software obligates you not to do these things, don’t want to know about it? That’s why it’s important to understand what’s in those EULA’s we accept- and to let companies know if we don’t like their terms. All the while, a battle rages behind the scenes. The software industry is pushing legislation to freeze your rights, and consumers are fighting back to reform the license agreement situation.