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Google joins the legion of program developers which trash civil rights and intellectual property law. Chrome's Omnibox feature reports to Google every time you use it, including your IP address in the data set. It also uses the "boilerplate" rights-grabbing usage agreement which, in this case, means that "by posting anything (via Chrome) to your blog(s), any forum, video site, myspace, itunes, or any other site that might happen to be supporting you, Google can use your work without paying you a dime. This doesn’t just apply to blogger, youtube, gmail etc, and if you think it does, re-read section 1.1 and 11. It applies to everything you pass through Chrome."
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10032047-56.html?tag=topicsPanel1.2
http://tapthehive.com/discuss/This_Post_Not_Made_In_Chrome_Google_s_EULA_Sucks
While Google responded to the discovery of their EULA rights-grab with admirable speed, the point that sticks with me is that they used a standard EULA which was never checked for applicability to the particular program that they're using. In doing so, they fall into the same quasi-legal cesspool that we're all wallowing in. No one in charge of such decisions at Google read the EULA they were attaching to Chrome, and only a small percentage of users who installed the program read the EULA. Yet they were legally bound by those constraints, and either party could be prosecuted and subject to civil litigation by licensing options that were ignored by both parties.
In a world where a significant percentage of people regularly steal programs, ignoring EULAs altogether, where parking lots insist that they're under no obligation to protect your car in their parking lot ("hey, man, we're just selling you the space") but still settle out of court every time someone sues them for property damage....why do we bother with all these lawyers?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10032047-56.html?tag=topicsPanel1.2
http://tapthehive.com/discuss/This_Post_Not_Made_In_Chrome_Google_s_EULA_Sucks
While Google responded to the discovery of their EULA rights-grab with admirable speed, the point that sticks with me is that they used a standard EULA which was never checked for applicability to the particular program that they're using. In doing so, they fall into the same quasi-legal cesspool that we're all wallowing in. No one in charge of such decisions at Google read the EULA they were attaching to Chrome, and only a small percentage of users who installed the program read the EULA. Yet they were legally bound by those constraints, and either party could be prosecuted and subject to civil litigation by licensing options that were ignored by both parties.
In a world where a significant percentage of people regularly steal programs, ignoring EULAs altogether, where parking lots insist that they're under no obligation to protect your car in their parking lot ("hey, man, we're just selling you the space") but still settle out of court every time someone sues them for property damage....why do we bother with all these lawyers?