Crazy EULA makes you agree to a bunch of other EULAs

Sam installed a IE plugin called Web Viewer today, and when he clicked on the license "agreement," he noticed that it contained this clause:

The Software may contain third party software which requires notices and/or additional terms and conditions. Such required third party software notices and/or additional terms and conditions are made a part of and incorporated by reference into this EULA. By accepting this EULA, you are also accepting the additional terms and conditions, if any, set forth therein.

Get that? When you agree to the EULA for Web Viewer, you also agree to a bunch of other, nonspecified "agreements" somewhere else. Better hope that there's nothin' unreasonable in them! Link (Thanks, Sam!)

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mneptok

Leave it to IE to need a plugin to view the web.
Skep

I would hope that such non-specific BS is unenforceable since it, like almost all ELUAs, says that you agree to whatever they decide to say now or in the future, in perpetuity.
s5

By reading this comment, you agree to cook me dinner every night for a week.
dculberson

Crap! I don’t have time for that! Oh well… hope you like ramen.
non-BB-gadget-account

@S5:

damn, i just did! ok then, where do you live and what do you like to eat?
musicman

beaten to it by mneptok – wtf does IE need a “web viewer” for?

When you get to the product page (
http://www.anbsoftware.co.uk/viewproduct.php?id=11 )it claims (lolz):

“This program has been developed to give Windows Mobile users the facility to have a very useful and functional tabbed web browser. Other tabbed mobile web browsers are either bulky, slow, or not free. This program is entirely free to use and uses Pocket Internet Explorer to show the web pages.”

I take it they mean free beer, not free speech :)
DragonPhyre

I had a frog. Its name was peepers. It eated little bugs. I liked him. It’s sad that a EULA made me eat him.
MadMolecule

Better hope that there’s nothin’ unreasonable in them!

I’d say one should hope there IS something unreasonable; you’re more likely to get the whole mess voided that way.
Andrew

This looks like a pro forma agreement they bought for a few dollars on which they just changed the business name. It also looks like a US agreement, despite the company being UK based and the EULA citing UK jurisdiction (e.g. there’s no reference to the company’s liability for death or personal injury). The clause cited above would almost certainly be held to be unfair in a consumer contract (e.g. see p43 of this document).

(Caveats: I didn’t read the whole thing (I read enough of the damn things anyway for stuff I actually do want to install) and, of course, IANAL.)
CJ

Pity, because it actually seems like nice app – for those saying “what does IE need a web viewer for”, it’s an add-on for windows mobile users. Pocket IE doesn’t allow tabs or multiple windows, and this adds that functionality.
Doran

I can’t imagine this aspect of the EULA is enforceable. But it would still take a chunk of cash and a good bit of time to prove it in court.
Krisjohn

Private comment, do not read.
EdT.

Teresa, is it this one?

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/25/reasonableagreemento.html
The Unusual Suspect

“Cory, one of these days you ought to blog the text of that anti-EULA you use as your e-mail .sig.”

Do you mean the ReasonableAgreement EULA?:

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/25/reasonableagreemento.html
MikeCitrome

This looks pretty unenforceable. You can force people to sign all kinds of cockamamie contracts, it does not mean a judge will give force to them. Even a clause for mandatory arbitration can be broken if a judge decides it’s abusive or just plain nuts.
Sam

While the contract may not be enforceable, it doesn’t change the fact that the software comes with a bunch of unidentified crap.
Thorzdad

By reading my comment you agree to any and all terms I may invent, now and in the future, with no recourse to appeal or arbitration. Sucks to be you.
ansisplat

This sort of contract clause is called boiler plate language. Courts usually dont enforce this language if it is 1) unreasonable, if it is 2) industry wide enough to not afford the consumer a choice, and if it is 3) something that a consumer would commonly know to be part of the agreement. I dont know why so many consumers even bother paying any attention to these types of agreements, theres nothing you can do about it and most of the time, if theres a problem, the provision proves unenforceable anyway. Take a chill pill and dont worry about it.
tekphreak

What happens if the other EULAs you have to agree to, contain a bunch of other EULAs, and those EULAs contain even more EULAs.

Congratulations, You soul is now the soul property of Microsoft. Please register it today.
anthropomorphictoast

All that just for tabbed browsing? Meh, I’ll stick with my PSP and its limited ‘net capabilities, thanks.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Cory, one of these days you ought to blog the text of that anti-EULA you use as your e-mail .sig.
John G

I think Ansisplat left out a “not” in point (3). The more unreasonable or unexpected a buried provision is, the less likely a court is to enforce it.

The converse is: the more unexpected or unreasonable a provision is, the more you have to draw someone’s attention to it to make it binding (and some will never be binding, and some a court would never assume consent to without very strong evidence.)

There are good practical and economic reasons for non-negotiated contracts, particularly for mass-marketed goods and services. The vendor cannot negotiate every transaction at a reasonable cost.

I understand the motive (or at least can formulate a reasonable one) for the EULAs-within-a-EULA that started this thread: there really are (or may be) embedded programs within the primary program, that may have their own conditions of use (usually that the end user can’t copy them to make his/her own products.)

It would make for better customer relations, and probably for better enforceability if push ever came to shove, for the vendor at the top of the heap (Microsoft, in this example and in so many ways …) to do its own investigation and legal analysis and make a single EULA to cover the whole product.

And why not make it reasonable, while they’re at it?