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Root's Rants 1
EULAs
Welcome to a new and hopefully exciting section of KarateParty.org, Root’s Rants. For my inaugural rant I would like to address the issue of EULAs (End User Licence Agreements, for those of you who will click anything that says "I agree" or "Yes I am of legal age and I wish to enter the site now".) These are basically a contract between you and whomever wrote/owns the piece of software you are trying to install. Now in and of themselves I don’t consider them to be evil, I can understand the idea behind them- "this software belongs to me, and I want to get some things straight before you start fucking with it", and it allows you to add cool but pointless clauses for the use of your software (Like Java, that cannot be used to aid the creation of nuclear power, or some shit). Now I, like most of you, am agreeing to these now at a rate of several a week and just like you, I have never ever read one! (I couldn’t even be bothered to confirm the whole nuclear thing in Java, such is my dislike for the ingestion of pointless and dull text.)
Now, despite the fact that I never read them, I can live with the fact that they exist for legal reasons, and that much like the form you fill out that asks you if you are a terrorist when you enter the U.S.A, the point of them is not that everyone takes them seriously, but that they can come in handy later if you end up in court. With this in mind, I will move on to the point of this rant, the brilliant idea some fucker had to make sure that not only do I have to agree to some longwinded legal mumbo-jumbo, I also have to scroll to the fucking bottom of the page to do so! I mean, what is the point of this idea anyway?
Does anyone actually believe that by adding the compulsory scroll to EULAs, that people will read them? I mean, if you are one of those weirdoes that actually read EULAs, then you were going to scroll anyway. If on the other hand you are like me, and would rather publicly shave your coin-purse then read the fucking things, all that the compulsory scroll is adding is more inconvenience to the whole process of installing the software, which really pisses me off when I have paid good (sometimes outrageous) money for it in the first place. Now it is possible that once again, the legal argument might start to creep in, and you might be tempted to say, "but, by making you scroll, they are just further increasing their legal legitimacy- you mean to say you scrolled through the text but didn’t read it? Tisk tisk!" but this argument is bullshit. First of all, only a complete chump could claim that the thought they were supposed to click the "I agree" button without reading the text, just because it was there. Its not like the button says, "skip the boring part and go straight to enjoying your software without any negative consequences" Secondly, anyone that tried this approach in court would be faced with a psychologist as an expert that would simply point out that NO SANE PERSON WOULD EVER READ A EULA WITHOUT BEING PAID TO DO SO! It is a truth about the human psyche, and no compulsory scroll is going to change it.
If they genuinely wanted to change our EULA reading habits, there are many actually effective ways to do so: you could simply have a timer that would not let you accept for 15 minutes (although most people would probably just go make a snack or something). You could make people answer multiple choice questions about the EULA, and if they did not get at least 50% right, the EULA would have to be re-read, this time with umm-bop from Hanson playing! (Although I would probably destroy my computer at this stage, then sue the company, plus I am ideologically opposed to giving Hanson royalties!) Perhaps they could simply have the EULA read out to you in Stephen Hawking style voice, with randomly appearing buttons that you had to click quickly or else the voice would start over. The point is not that I like any of these, merely that they represent actual attempts to increase EULA readership, and not some pointless fucking action that has no chance of making me read the EULA, but exists solely as a racket for companies that have the patent on the mouse scroll wheel!
I recall attending a trade show where the representative from Microsoft actually gave out a spot prize for someone who quoted from their EULA- "nobody actually reads those" she said. And she was right, so for all those companies that insist on making me scroll to the bottom of the EULA before I agree to whatever the hell they contain:
YOU JUST MADE MY LIST, BUDDY!
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