Touchy Google wraps protective arm around Chrome EULA Google has clarified Chrome’s universal licensing terms after a user argued that the firm could limit an individual’s web browsing based on the content he or she viewed. The web giant’s head flack Gabriel Stricker hit back in a corporate blog post yesterday after Slashdot published an anonymous reader’s musings about Chrome’s …
The lawmakers of the world are trying to do all sorts to force ISPs to filter our internet browsing, how long before they go after the browsers?
There has already been talk from various quarters of sueing ISPs should their browsing be filtered by their ISP, even if they do so because the law requires it. Could it be that Google have had the common sense to slip in a clause or two that will protect them from litigation should such legislation hit the books?
Shold be a double-ess methinks...
What sense does it make to use one EULA for entirely different products? Many firms sell hardware, software and online services too. I doubt they have the same EULA for them all:. Doe MS have an EULA that says you're only buying a license to use your keyboard, the actual unit remains the property of Microsoft? Or do Virginmedia state that you're limited to 1.2TB of words being spoken to you over the phone beetween 4 and 9pm, and you can only answer with 300MB of words? Of course not, they're different products with different terms
So sorry, but if Google carried a service EULA over word-for-word into a software product, it shows careless lawyering and the extra ess is required.
IF this is indeed just the same story as last time (as it certainly seems to be to me), why are we having to go through this all again, when last time Google agreed it was stupid to apply the same ToS to the browser as they apply to their online mail/search/etc services? They said they'd rewrite it; they at least started to; now some berk has gone and put more meaningless irrelevant language back in through some kind of cut-and-paste-without-thinking-about-what-you're-saying clumsiness. Someone dropped the ball and it makes Google look like it's got corporate amnesia. Left-hand / right-hand / no communication?
All of which led the Slashdotter to ask: “Does this mean that Google reserves the right to filter my web browsing experience in Chrome (without my consent to boot)?”
No, it doesn't. By accepting the Chrome EULA you are consenting to the terms of that EULA, i.e. you are activly granting Google the right to filter your web browsing experience.
So ... not content with a story that bashes Google, the Register turns a non-story about an EULA and a clarifying response into a story that bashes Google.
I assume the Register has decided that Google-sniping is a way to set itself apart from the crowd: a brand distinguisher. For this reader at least, it's little more than tedious and almost always (seemingly) baseless.
Why not wait for a genuine reason to criticise Google and do your readership and credibility a favour?
So some random has a concern about googles EULA, which google takes the time to reply to and explain why and this is a bad thing because......?
Its not because they are using generic EULAs its due to the anti-phishing features built into the browser.
Lets try and keep the Google bashing to things they deserve..
Whatever about the trapdoors opening before us, and the value of non-Google Chromium Iron, Steel, or other shiny metals, I'd suspect the ToS wording not to have been a complete accident.
This is the way Big Business/Government/The Man treats us plebs nowadays: speak softly and ignore the discussion. So you "haven't made the decision yet" and when you have, you hold a Public Enquiry and (after all the peasants have had their say) you decide to go with your original pre-Enquiry decision anyway.
Or your EULA gets caught and you agree to change future ones, and then accidentally don't. Oops, we-hold-our-hands-up but lets draw a line under that and move on now shall we?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
