End-User License Agreements or EULAs – the long block of text you should click an “I agree” button on each and every time you install something using your laptop, phone or whatever. We’ve all skipped them, we never read them. Anyone read a EULA for pleasure? Didn’t think so. In the process to get my smartphone tooled up for a lot of serious energy usage with some neat little apps like GroceryIQ, I encountered several and actually used your time to skim through them (I read in a short time) for something new as I’ve been doing to get a little while. So exactly what is the story here?
South Park’s (very clever if graphic) Human CentiPad episode that I caught a re-run of recently had a rather good message about it. Kyle does a similar thing we all do – clicks by using a EULA without reading it. Of course, now his failure to study the EULA contains the unintended response to agreeing to sign up in Steve Jobs’ revolutionary cool product launch Human CentiPad (a parody in the infamous Human Centipede movie, naturally). Multiple times throughout the episode, Steve Jobs gives Kyle the chance opt out – merely to scream “You didn’t make out the print!” upon receiving agreement from Kyle.
Naturally, the South Park episode is often a ridiculous demonstration of what can happen if we click “I agree” without reading, but while doing so it created a very good point: We as “end users” (including myself) are extremely lazy so much that we don’t bother to study this stuff since it is naturally a number of “Don’t sue us” legalese. That, in fact it is incredibly hard you just read a bunch of tiny text in the even smaller text box.
This form of thing might have gone straight over my head if this had been couched like a bland public service message as well, but South Park’s humorous way of it really tied to me. I remember after I saw the episode originally a couple of months back, I got an update from Apple for QuickTime in this little laptop in the home. I promptly clicked over the EULA…and almost as promptly said “You didn’t make out the print!” the moment I realized what I did. I should really start paying more attention. So, I definitely must give props to South Park for producing a point that actually stayed with me (and hopefully a number of other viewers in some places).