Dan Gillmor points to this story about Dell license policy.
When starting a new Dell computer for the first time, customers are required to declare that they have read all license agreements and agree with them.
Problem is, there is no way to read those license agreements at that stage.
So customers can either lie about having read the agreements or return the computer.
Of course, Dell expects people to do the former. They wouldn't be happy if everybody returned their laptops because of this problem.
So what happens to the large majority of customers who don't mind lying? Are they bound by all those license agreements?
I don't know how that question would be answered under American law. German law says that you need to make it possible for customers to read license texts before accepting them (Article 305 Section 2 BGB). Or else that license just won't be part of any contract.
So the Dell people need to work on their booting procedure. They should provide screens to actually read any licenses they want people to agree to.
But if they don't, those licenses should not be enforcable.
Posted by Karl-Friedrich Lenz at August 30, 2003 01:58 PM | TrackBack