{"id":13779,"date":"2009-12-14T08:24:22","date_gmt":"2009-12-14T13:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/?p=13779"},"modified":"2013-10-02T13:30:19","modified_gmt":"2013-10-02T13:30:19","slug":"4-years-later-pc-pitstop-eula-experiment-still-the-buzz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/4-years-later-pc-pitstop-eula-experiment-still-the-buzz\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Years Later &#8211; PC Pitstop EULA Experiment Still the Buzz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p>Hard to believe it has been 4 years since one lucky PC Pitstop Optimize user won $1,000 by simply reading our End-User License Agreement (EULA)!<br \/>\nOur EULA had a clause offering money to anyone who contacted us, but it took five months and more than 3,000 sales before the first person, Doug Heckman, dropped us a line asking about the clause.<\/p>\n<p>Larry Magid, our guest columnist who authored the original article of the danger of unread EULAs (below) &#8211; brought this experiement up again in his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/larry-magid\/ci_13972611\">December 13th column about Facebook privacy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Original PC Pitstop article published in Feb 2005<\/p>\n<p><b>It Pays To Read License Agreements<\/b><\/p>\n<p>by Larry Magid<\/p>\n<p>\nI have a deal for you.<br \/>\nIn exchange for a free piece of software that helps you keep<br \/>\ntrack of your passwords and other log on information,<br \/>\nI&#8217;m going to install other programs on your PC that will track your web<br \/>\nsurfing and display advertising that pops-up on your screen.<br \/>\nThere will also be other types of ads on your computer based on information we collect.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nDoes that sound like a good deal to you?  Well, if you&#8217;re one of the many Windows<br \/>\nusers who have installed eWallet software from Gain Publishing that&#8217;s exactly what you<br \/>\nagreed to do.  But you already know that because you read the End User License Agreement<br \/>\nor &#8220;EULA&#8221; that was available prior to installing the program. You did read it right?  Of<br \/>\ncourse you did; before you could install the software you had to check a box<br \/>\ncertifying that you read the agreement.<br \/>\nLegally speaking, that&#8217;s the same thing as signing a contract with pen and ink.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nOK, let&#8217;s be honest.  You didn&#8217;t really read the EULA.<br \/>\nHow do I know? Because hardly anyone does.<br \/>\nTo prove that point, PC Pitstop included a clause in one of its own<br \/>\nEULAs that promised anyone who read it, a &#8220;consideration&#8221; including money<br \/>\nif they sent a note to an email address listed in the EULA.<br \/>\nAfter four months and more than 3,000 downloads, one person finally wrote in.<br \/>\nThat person, by the way, got a check for $1,000 proving, at least for one person,<br \/>\nthat it really does pay to read EULAs.\n<\/p>\n<div style=\"float:right; width:438px; margin:4px;\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/spycheck\/consider.jpg\" width=438 height=242 border=0><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size:85%; font-weight:bold;\">\nIs anyone reading this? PC Pitstop offered a financial incentive in its EULA,<br \/>\nand it took four months before anyone responded.\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\nAlthough this is not a scientific sample, it does prove a point.<br \/>\nPeople don&#8217;t read EULAs.<br \/>\nWhen we download and install software, we&#8217;re usually in a hurry to take advantage<br \/>\nof whatever it offers.<br \/>\nThat EULA is just one more thing to spend time on, and we&#8217;re<br \/>\nnot just talking about a couple of minutes.<br \/>\nThe December 2004 End User License agreement<br \/>\nthat accompanies eWallet and other programs from the GAIN network<br \/>\nis 2,550 words long&#8211;that&#8217;s seven printed pages.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nTo its credit, not everything in Gain&#8217;s EULA is in legalese.<br \/>\nYou don&#8217;t have to pay a Harvard law graduate $300 an hour to understand the first paragraph:\n<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n&#8220;GAIN Publishing offers some of the most popular software available<br \/>\non the Internet free of charge (&#8220;GAIN-Supported Software&#8221;) in exchange for<br \/>\nyour agreement to also install GAIN AdServer software (&#8220;GAIN&#8221;), which will<br \/>\ndisplay Pop-Up, Pop-Under, and other types of ads on your computer based<br \/>\non the information we collect as stated in this Privacy Statement.<br \/>\nWe refer to consumers who have GAIN on their system as &#8216;Subscribers.&#8217; &#8221;\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\nThe rest of GAIN&#8217;s EULA is also pretty clear. If you take the time to read it, you&#8217;ll realize that you&#8217;re giving the company permission to install software that &#8220;collects certain non-personally identifiable information about your Web surfing and computer usage.&#8221;  This, according to the agreement, &#8220;includes the URL addresses of the Web pages you view and how long you view Web pages; non-personally identifiable information on Web pages and forms including the searches you conduct on the Internet; your response to online ads; Zip code\/postal code; country and city; standard web log information and system settings; what software is on the computer.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div style=\"float:right; width:307px; margin:4px;\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/spycheck\/ewallet.jpg\" width=307 height=228 border=0><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size:85%; font-weight:bold;\">\nGator&#8217;s eWallet EULA is contained in this small box but it is 7 printed pages long.\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\nSo what&#8217;s the harm in collecting &#8220;non-personally identifiable information?&#8221;<br \/>\nAfter all, isn&#8217;t that done all the time?<br \/>\nWell there are certainly examples of such collection.<br \/>\nMany legitimate web sites, for example, keep track of the number of<br \/>\nvisitors and where they go the site.<br \/>\nThis information is used to inform advertisers about a site&#8217;s popularity<br \/>\nand to give the site owners a better understanding of what parts of<br \/>\nthe site are doing well and what sites are now.<br \/>\nAdvertisers, of course, want to know how many people have viewed<br \/>\ntheir ad as well as &#8220;clickthrough&#8221; rates and other information.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nBut there is a big difference between collecting non-personal information<br \/>\nabout what visitors are doing on your own site and tracking<br \/>\n&#8220;the URL addresses of the (other) Web pages you view and how long you view Web pages.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\nReal live brick and mortar department stores, for example, do collect statistics<br \/>\nabout what sections of the store people are visiting, how long they spend<br \/>\nthere and what they buy. It&#8217;s basic research.<br \/>\nBut imagine if you visited a store one day and they planted a bug on your<br \/>\nperson that followed you around to all the other stores you visited?<br \/>\nWhile they were at it, they tracked your reading behavior,<br \/>\nwhat TV shows you watched and maybe even who you talked with.<br \/>\nThey&#8217;re not writing down your name, but they are following you around.<br \/>\nWould this be legal? It might be, if they had you sign a contract specifically<br \/>\nallowing it before they let you in the store.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAnd by the way, they&#8217;re not just following you around.<br \/>\nThey&#8217;re also getting in your way, making it harder for you to walk from place to place.<br \/>\nMaking it harder to start your car and slowing it down once you start it.<br \/>\nThey might even cause you to stumble now and then.<br \/>\nThat&#8217;s a lot like spyware and adware; it takes up hard drive space, memory,<br \/>\nand other resources.<br \/>\nAlso, it can significantly degrade your Internet connection because spyware is<br \/>\ngoing out over the Internet to get information to display and, in some cases,<br \/>\nsending out information from your PC.<br \/>\nIn other words, it is using your resources&#8211;resources that you paid for.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nGAIN is far from the only company that asks you to &#8220;sign&#8221; an agreement with<br \/>\nserious implications.<br \/>\nMarketscore, which bills itself as an Internet marketing research company,<br \/>\noffers a service which, it claims, can speed up your web surfing<br \/>\nand protect you from viruses.<br \/>\nWhether or not it actually speeds up your service is debatable, but one thing is for sure.<br \/>\nIf you read Marketscore&#8217;s privacy policy you&#8217;ll learn that the company<br \/>\n&#8220;monitors all of your Internet behavior, including both the normal<br \/>\nweb browsing you perform, and also the activity you may have through<br \/>\nsecure sessions, such as when filling a shopping basket or filling out an<br \/>\napplication form that may contain personal financial and health information.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe company says that it has all sorts of procedures in place to<br \/>\n&#8220;restrict the third party&#8217;s use of the information we provide.&#8221;<br \/>\nThat&#8217;s all well and good, but even if the company is as sincere and diligent<br \/>\nas it says it is, things can change.<br \/>\nAnd, if the company does decide to change its policy on how it handles<br \/>\npersonally identifiable information, it &#8220;will notify you by posting proposed<br \/>\nchanges to this Privacy Statement and on our web site.&#8221;<br \/>\nThose changes &#8220;will be effective immediately upon such posting.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAnd don&#8217;t think that can&#8217;t happen.<br \/>\nEven if the current owners are committed to keeping information private,<br \/>\nthere is no guarantee that the company won&#8217;t be sold.<br \/>\nIf it goes bankrupt, there is even the possibility of your information<br \/>\nbeing sold to pay off creditors.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nYou may wonder whether these licenses are legal.  Most of them do<br \/>\nhold up in court as long as they are reasonably clear, according to Parry Aftab, an<br \/>\nattorney specializing in Internet privacy and security law<br \/>\n(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.aftab.com\" target=\"_blank\">www.aftab.com<\/a>).<br \/>\n&#8220;The courts have said that if you click on something saying &#8216;I agree&#8217; then it&#8217;s legal consent.&#8221;<br \/>\nThere are exceptions however.<br \/>\n&#8220;If it&#8217;s not legally clear enough, you haven&#8217;t given consent to anything<br \/>\nbecause there is no meeting of the minds.<br \/>\nIt goes back to basis of contract law from 500 years ago.<br \/>\nYou have to both agree on what you are agreeing on.&#8221;<br \/>\nIn other words, if the agreement is incomprehensible, it may be unenforceable,<br \/>\naccording to Aftab.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAnother exception has to do with minors.<br \/>\n&#8220;Kids,&#8221; according to Aftab, &#8220;are under state contractual age which is sometimes<br \/>\n16 and sometimes 18.<br \/>\nIf the site requires the person to make an affirmative representation<br \/>\nthat they are over the age of 18, it may keep the company out of trouble<br \/>\nbut it&#8217;s still not enforceable.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThis is an important distinction because a lot of spyware and adware is<br \/>\nbundled with programs that are marketed to children and teenagers.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe fact that a EULA might not be legally enforceable is of little solace<br \/>\nbecause it is being enforced on you whether you like it or not.<br \/>\nOnce the program is installed on your PC, the damage is being done and<br \/>\nit doesn&#8217;t even matter if the contract that you or your child agreed to may be invalid.<br \/>\nSimply by using your computer, you&#8217;re upholding your part of that contract<br \/>\nby giving up information.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAttorney Aftab says that even though the courts have ruled on the legality of EULAs,<br \/>\nthere are still some grey areas that need to be ironed out.<br \/>\nAnd, of course, the courts are basing their rulings on current law.<br \/>\nThere are some in Congress who alarmed at the growth of spyware and a<br \/>\nnumber of bills have been discussed that could impact the way these EULAs are written,<br \/>\nagreed to and enforced.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nIn the mean time, it&#8217;s &#8220;user beware.&#8221;<br \/>\nA click of the mouse, like a stroke of a pen, can get you into a heap of trouble.<br \/>\nBe careful, be aware and read those EULAs.\n<\/p>\n<p><i><br \/>\nLarry Magid is a syndicated technology columnist and broadcaster for two decades,<br \/>\nand contributes to CBS News, the New York Times, U.S. News &#038; World Report<br \/>\nand other publications.<br \/>\n<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/techtalk.pcpitstop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/20091214eula.jpg\" alt=\"tekzilla\" class=\"attachment wp-att-7167 alignleft\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Hard to believe it has been 4 years since one lucky PC Pitstop Optimize user won $1,000 by simply reading our End-User License Agreement (EULA)!<br \/>\nOur EULA had a clause offering money to anyone who contacted us, but it took five months and more than 3,000 sales before the first person, Doug Heckman, dropped us a line asking about the clause.<\/p>\n<p>In the time since word of our &#8216;easter egg&#8217; got out, numerous tech columnists have cited our experiment in discussions of privacy. An <a href=\"http:\/\/techtalk.pcpitstop.com\/2009\/12\/14\/4-years-later-pc-pitstop-eula-experiment-still-the-buzz\/\"> article published today brought it up again<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":66012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2814,2815,2160,2816,73],"class_list":["post-13779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-pit-blog","tag-eulas","tag-gain-publishing","tag-guest-columnist","tag-heckman","tag-pc-pitstop"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>4 Years Later - PC Pitstop EULA Experiment Still the Buzz<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Hard to believe it has been 4 years since one lucky PC Pitstop Optimize user won $1,000 by simply reading our End-User License Agreement (EULA)! Our EULA had a clause offering money to anyone who contacted us, but it took five months and more than 3,000 sales before the first person, Doug Heckman, dropped us a line asking about the clause.  In the time since word of our &#039;easter egg&#039; got out, numerous tech columnists have cited our experiment in discussions of privacy. 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In the time since word of our &#039;easter egg&#039; got out, numerous tech columnists have cited our experiment in discussions of privacy. 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