this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
516 points (98.9% liked)
Technology
59217 readers
2864 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
None of these are (speaking generally) legal requirements of an agreement in the US.
Source: Am lawyer who writes EULAs for a living.
There are plenty of good arguments for why a particular EULA might be legally problematic, but "no signature, no contract!" isn't one.
Yup, my understanding of contract law is that there must be a mutual agreement accompanied by a exchange of any thing of value.
I would argue that since you typically pay for and receive the software before being asked to agree to the EULA, there is no exchange accompanying the agreement and thus it is not a contract.
I have also heard of laws that explicitly limit what EULAs can accomplish because it's common knowledge that nobody reads them.
The minimum requirement for something to be a legal contract is a signature. You can't just write something on a piece of paper and say "oh this is legally enforceable, no I don't have any evidence, go away".
And you'd have an extraordinarily hard time proving that someone clicked "I agree". Just because companies are prepared to pay to have EULAs written doesn't mean they're actually legally enforceable.
Nope. You're still wrong, but it's not worth the trouble. I hope you never have to learn the hard way. Take it easy.