A EULA library

Are you familiar with EULAlyzer Personal (available at http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/eulalyzer.html). It parses the EULA and looks for certain word patterns that it deems potentially threatening. It highlights them (with the surrounding text) and asks if you want to accept the proposed policy. You can also save EULAs and add word patterns to the program database. I use it regularly to avoid reading the EULA but, at the same time, (hopefully) keeping myself from missing something that might cause a problem. EULAlyzer Personal is free. There is also a professional version that costs $19.95.

I had heard of this program but I have given up on trying to read EULAs. I really don’t know how enorceable some of their provisions are if ever legally challenged. They all say that, if the program screws up your computer, that’s your tough luck. They also say that you don’t own the program but are merely purchasing a license to use it. The most worrisome things are when they say (as in the Sony “rootkit”) that they can do whatever they want to your computer. Also there is sometimes a question of privacy. I try to protect my privacy in several ways. One thing that I do is never register programs (as opposed to activate, which is a necessity). I may miss out on update notices that way but I escape some of the privacy issues. If I have to register for some reason, I use a throw-away email address and a fake identity. Some programs keep trying to dial out to the internet but I set my firewall to block that unless there is a good reason. I suppose I ought to read the EULAs but life is short.