🚀 go-pugleaf

Xcott Craver <caj@baker.math.niu.edu> wrote:

> 	Right.  GoHip's installer could only be considered a 
> 	virus in the fluffy, theoretical sense that a meme is a virus.
> 	Well, it's a lot closer to a meme than a Melissa.

Although, I don't think the GoHip "freevideo" case
*is* memetic!  As you said later in your post, GoHip
is getting a great deal of bad press on this.  They
even the supreme ambulance-chasers of the security
world -- Finjan -- issuing a press release because
of concern about this, and most antivirus developers
have had to respond to negative web searches and tech
support calls by documenting the GoHip "issue".

> 	Now, if the signature contained a bit of javascript which
> 	auto-directed readers to the page, and didn't have a license
> 	agreement, _then_ it would clearly be a virus.

I suspect you mean "and it didn't have a description
of its functionality".

> >GoHip's installer does what it says it will, *after*
> >the user assents to having agreed to its terms.  
> 
> 	This is kind of an oversimplification.  Clearly the user
> 	clicks assent to the terms---legally, the user assented
> 	(altho this kind of agreement hasn't been thoroughly tested
> 	in a court of law.)

I agree this kind of "license agreement" has not been
fully tested legally, and I suspect it may face similar
problems to the more traditional "enclosed slip of
paper" type agreements if tested (but I can see some
clever additional wrinkles that expensive counsel could
argue for a year or two...).  Given the user is warned
to read *all the terms* AND that their assent is their
assent *to all the terms*, standing up and saying "well,
actually, I'm a putz and didn't read all the terms and
I now don't like what the terms that I accepted without
reading said..." is *not* going to win you much
sympathy, no matter how dire the consequences.

Remmber people, the law often has nothing to say about,
or interest in, protecting you from someone else's bad
judgement, and depends on you taking responsibility for
your judgements (good or bad).

> 	The issue, however, is one of burying these terms in deceptive
> 	packaging.  The program does not in any way enhance your 
> 	browser's video.  Even if it fesses up in the license agreement,
> 	after you download it, the practice is still deceptive.

I agree the packaging is deceptive.  The solution for
that is caveat emptor -- buyer beware.  As to the issue
of the terms being displayed "after download", given the
desing of today's public networks there are not really
any satisfactory choices that adequately prevent
spoofing and/or client-end side-stepping.  If the
program that actually installs the "product" is the one
that asks assent *and* that is the only way the "product"
can be installed, then there is not much argument that
someone with the "product" installed assented to it (or
"carelessly" left their machine in the hands of someone
who is not responsible for making such decisions).  Note
that the conditions are installed after execution of the
installer, but before anything is installed -- it is not
as if it installs itself *then* tells you the deal (that
would be much wprse than the current situation).

> >> Additionaly it replaces your sig ...
> >
> >...*after* you assert that you accept it doing so.
> 
> 	Yet more proof that the practice is deceptive.  People press the 
> 	"Accept" button, indicating agreement, but don't really agree with 
> 	the terms.  It's a stealth clause.

Of course, like it or not, this is true of most clauses
in most "electronic acceptance" licenses.  Very few
people are as anal as me about reading such things when
installing software (or, at least, when installing it "for
real" -- I install a lot of things as one off tests on
sacrificial machines on their own test network and seldom
give the licenses a glance then...).

I do not need to read all umpteen paragraphs of the MS
license agreements.  I've read them all before and they
have masses of corporate lawyers who are paid to write them
and ensure a degree of consistency between products of
vaguely simialr kinds.  But, were I to install a "free
browser video enhancement" from a previously unheard of
company that, at first glance, seems to be the "new boy on
the block", I am going to look *very* closely at what they
want me (and my company/client/whatever) to agree to.

> 	Now, people could be more perceptive, considering that they're
> 	signing a contract and all.  OTOH, they ahve to sign these things
> 	all the time.  If you had to sign a page of legalese every time
> 	you bought food, you wouldn't read it either, and couldn't be
> 	criticized for missing an evil clause.

"couldn't"???

> 	Legal?  I'm pretty sure.  A stunt like this might be _made_ 
> 	illegal in the future, as the sheer number of license agreements
> 	(and evil stunts) gets attention.

Or, more precisely, as the sheer weight of "I couldn't
care less and don't want to learn so let's have legislation
to protect us" users further swamps the Internet and dodgy
practices like GoHip's sully the reputation of the most of
the "good guys" who are already on the net...

> 	Typical business practice?  Naw, I think GoHip is getting a 
> 	bad reputation from this stunt, and typically companies are
> 	smart enough not to try something like this.  A typical business 
> 	practice might be more along the lines of RealNetworks, who 
> 	actually provides a piece of software, an actual utility, with their
> 	mountain of advertisements.

8-)

Although they were recently shown to be doing something a
tad dodgy too, weren't they??


-- 
Nick FitzGerald