Yesterday I wrote about Chrome’s evil EULA terms, and posted a link to Tap The Hive about the news.
Well, it looks like Google fixed the EULA language.
Here’s an official response from Rebecca Ward, Senior Product Counsel for Google Chrome:
“In order to keep things simple for our users, we try to use the same set of legal terms (our Universal Terms of Service) for many of our products. Sometimes, as in the case of Google Chrome, this means that the legal terms for a specific product may include terms that don’t apply well to the use of that product. We are working quickly to remove language from Section 11 of the current Google Chrome terms of service. This change will apply retroactively to all users who have downloaded Google Chrome.”
And the new EULA terms?
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.
So it’s safe to use Google Chrome again. Probably about 10% of the population can breathe a sigh of relief now, and the remaining 90% can go on wondering what the big deal was, although I think that says more about a general misunderstanding of copyright than anything else. But that’s another post on another day.
What I like about Google is that the company occasionally acts like a startup. They occasionally say “Whoops! We made a mistake! We’ll fix it!” And they make bone-headed mistakes like copy-and-pasting legal language that doesn’t really say what they wanted the EULA terms to be…something indie game developers do all the time. Google moves quickly for being such a large company.
Now if only they can take their belief “in access to information for everyone” and apply it to AdSense/AdWords. Why do I have to be left in the dark with so much of the data not provided?
[tags] google chrome, eula, business [/tags]