It would take 30 working days a year to read every EULA.

[techs]

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...d-need-to-take-month-off-work-each-year.shtml

To Read All Of The Privacy Policies You Encounter, You'd Need To Take A Month Off From Work Each Year

In fact, a new report notes that if you actually bothered to read all the privacy policies you encounter on a daily basis, it would take you 250 working hours per year -- or about 30 workdays. The full study (pdf) by Aleecia M. McDonald and Lorrie Faith Cranor is quite interesting. They measure the length of privacy policies, ranging from just 144 words up to 7,669 words (median is around 2,500 words) and recognize that at a standard reading pace of 250 words per minute, most privacy policies take about eight to ten minutes to read. They also ran some tests to figure out how long it actually takes people to read and/or skim privacy policies.



Next time someone says its not the companies fault that you didn't read the EULA show them this.

 

[DrPizza]

Okay, I can believe the average of 8 to 10 minutes to read. Let's go with 10 minutes to read. 250 hours = 250 * 6 ten minute intervals. That's 1500 EULAs, nearly 5 new EULAs each day? Uh, I don't think so. Not even close.

I think I found in the original document where they screwed up. Seems that they've estimated the average person visits 119 (low end) unique Internet sites each year. It also seems that they assume that every website has an EULA.

edit: omg, that paper is such a pile of garbage. I thought more highly of Carnegie Mellon. That's seriously material from a PhD candidate?! They used the average number of unique websites per month for March. Then, assumed that each month, they would visit the same number of unique websites. I.e., if your 119 unique websites in March included Google, Facebook, etc., they assumed you visited another 119 unique websites in April (not including those popular sites.) This is in addition to the assumption that every site has a EULA. -And then the paper kind of says, no we didn't do this either. It's just really hand wavey with incredibly poor mathematical reasoning.

 

[techs]

Actually the study is flawed in that it doesn't include things like your auto insurance policy, health care policy, mortgage policy, etc, etc etc.
Heck, I would guess it would take far longer than 30days to read all your eula's

 

[lotus503]

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...d-need-to-take-month-off-work-each-year.shtml

To Read All Of The Privacy Policies You Encounter, You'd Need To Take A Month Off From Work Each Year

In fact, a new report notes that if you actually bothered to read all the privacy policies you encounter on a daily basis, it would take you 250 working hours per year -- or about 30 workdays. The full study (pdf) by Aleecia M. McDonald and Lorrie Faith Cranor is quite interesting. They measure the length of privacy policies, ranging from just 144 words up to 7,669 words (median is around 2,500 words) and recognize that at a standard reading pace of 250 words per minute, most privacy policies take about eight to ten minutes to read. They also ran some tests to figure out how long it actually takes people to read and/or skim privacy policies.



Next time someone says its not the companies fault that you didn't read the EULA show them this.

most however use standard language throughout. Indemnification for example is going to be standard regardless of the EULA

 

[Doppel]

Okay, I can believe the average of 8 to 10 minutes to read. Let's go with 10 minutes to read. 250 hours = 250 * 6 ten minute intervals. That's 1500 EULAs, nearly 5 new EULAs each day? Uh, I don't think so. Not even close.

I think I found in the original document where they screwed up. Seems that they've estimated the average person visits 119 (low end) unique Internet sites each year. It also seems that they assume that every website has an EULA.

edit: omg, that paper is such a pile of garbage. I thought more highly of Carnegie Mellon. That's seriously material from a PhD candidate?! They used the average number of unique websites per month for March. Then, assumed that each month, they would visit the same number of unique websites. I.e., if your 119 unique websites in March included Google, Facebook, etc., they assumed you visited another 119 unique websites in April (not including those popular sites.) This is in addition to the assumption that every site has a EULA. -And then the paper kind of says, no we didn't do this either. It's just really hand wavey with incredibly poor mathematical reasoning.

It's terrible analysis.

That aside, I don't know anybody who reads privacy policies. I think it's actually reasonable to say that something so long and read by so few is thus invalidated. I mean really these things are all just very stupid and should be under some larger legal umbrella (which to an extent they are).

When i did my last mortgage refi I signed dozens of times. No idea what the hell I was signing. I was careful on the main numbers; mortgage rate, interest, after that it was a load of rubbish to me even though I had an attorney there. It's a load of rubbish to 99% of people and it's not their fault, it's the fault of the loquacious legal mumbo jumbo. If one paragraph on one page had said if I ever miss a payment I sign rights to my children off I wouldn't have known.

 

[Craig234]

Actually, I would like to see some software publisher make an EULA that says you agree to let anyone the publisher specifes live in your house for free.

Just to kind of make a point about how they're not read and get a court ruling further clarifying 'no, you can't enforce that'.

 

[Murloc]

I don't install that much software and the EULAs are all the same mostly.

I think it's not a bad practice not to read software EULA because it's usually common sense ("as is" etc.), just know you're not going to be able to sue them.
You also don't need to know privacy policies or anything as long as you behave as you would if everything you upload is public and commercially exploited.

stuff that involves money? I read everything.
You can always skim over the standard parts after you become familiar with them.

 

[randomrogue]

There's a great south park episode about EULA's and Apple if you haven't seen it. Episode 1, season 15.

I have read all the mortgage documents (which is insane btw and like 4 inches thick) but I would never dream of reading a EULA. They need to have cliff notes. I don't understand how it's legal to have such a verbose document for such everyday software packages. It's unreasonable to expect even the most intellectual and anal retentive person to read them.

 

[shortylickens]

I read mine, but I still dont understand them.
I'd need to hire a lawyer for that.
If I paid a hundred bucks every time I needed something like that interpreted then I'd have to kill my mother, collect the insurance, use that to pay off the lawyers. Sell the house, use the proceeds to pay for all future EULA's.

They deliberately make those things long and complicated so you DONT know what you are getting in to. Then they can do what they want to you afterwards.

 

[techs]

So, should the government have laws restricting what eula's can do?

For example should a software eula be prohibited from including a clause allowing the software to silently download additional software?

 

[Londo_Jowo]

If you can't abide by the EULA, don't purchase the software.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

Actually, I would like to see some software publisher make an EULA that says you agree to let anyone the publisher specifes live in your house for free.

Just to kind of make a point about how they're not read and get a court ruling further clarifying 'no, you can't enforce that'.

Someone did something like that. It's discussed in the last paragraph of the linked story.

I think it's worth pointing out that a EULA and a privacy policy aren't the same thing. There really isn't any need to read the privacy policies of sites you visit regularly and trust.

 

[fskimospy]

If you can't abide by the EULA, don't purchase the software.

I don't find this argument very convincing, and it's the sort of thing that the market has a hard time correcting. (being screwed is an unlikely event that people don't really factor in to their purchase, and once you are screwed it's already too late)

Similarly, telecoms, banks, and other such companies have been massively abusing terms of use agreements for years now. Their biggest scam is mandatory binding arbitration, where all of their customers are basically locked out of court as a way to resolve disputes with the company. If it were just one company doing it, the market could fix the problem. Since it's basically every wireless company (for example), you have nowhere to go other than not using a phone... which is clearly a poor answer.

 

[shortylickens]

If you can't abide by the EULA, don't purchase the software.

You'd have to understand it to make that decision intelligently.
You'd need time to read it. If you properly read every one in your life you wouldnt get much done.

Thats the point of the thread.

 

[Craig234]

So, should the government have laws restricting what eula's can do?

For example should a software eula be prohibited from including a clause allowing the software to silently download additional software?

One of the problems with that is that when yiou specify some things not allowed, it strengthens the claims anything not banned is valid.

It's similar to the issue the founding fathers faced - the main objection to a bill of rights was that they wanted other rights not listed also protected.

They said 'if you list some, then it'll imply that anything not listed isn't really protected'. That's why they put the 9th and 10th in saying all other rights are sill protected.

But they were pretty much right - the courts will go to huge lengths to debate protecting the listed rights, but they've almost never said 'this right is protected by the 9th or 10th'.

Imagine a right like speech or guns or not being searched unreasonably were not listed.

In theory, it's still equally protected by the 9th/10th, but in practice, it wouldn't get anywhere near the protection.

 

[Pray To Jesus]

Should just make a law listing what is legal to put in one. Modify as necessary.