FC: Software plan is a travesty for consumers, by Dan Gillmor

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

> From: "Akilesh Rajan" <shivohum () nobletree com>
> To: <declan () well com>
> Subject: Software plan is a travesty for consumers
> Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 12:30:32 -0500
> X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0)
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>
> From: http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg080199.htm
>
> Software plan is a travesty for consumers
> BY DAN GILLMOR
> Mercury News Technology Columnist
> THE Information Age was supposed to be all about empowering individuals, and
> in some small ways it has happened. But big business and big government are
> moving swiftly to ensure that power -- real power -- will never fall into
> the hands of regular folks.
>
> The powers-that-be are pushing all kinds of intrusions on your rights as a
> consumer and citizen. In the past several weeks, we've lost considerable
> ground.
>
> Two months ago I warned about the so-called Uniform Computer Information
> Transactions Act, or UCITA. On Thursday, the National Conference of
> Commissioners for Uniform State Laws endorsed UCITA, one of the most grossly
> anti-consumer proposals of recent times.
>
> The endorsement isn't law, but it encourages individual states to pass the
> draft legislation. States typically do so.
>
> This time, the process has been so visibly one-sided that the proponents may
> have a harder time than they expected once they try to push this travesty
> through the various state legislatures. Unfortunately, if even one state
> passes UCITA, it's conceivable that sellers could force consumers to abide
> by contracts under that state's law.
>
> And ``travesty'' is the right word. UCITA, if enacted by the various states,
> would skew the relationship between sellers and buyers of software, whether
> you buy software out of a box or online. It might well govern a host of
> electronic commerce transactions in the future, too. The balance, already on
> the side of sellers, would lean much further in that direction. If you care
> even slightly about your rights as a consumer -- as an individual or a
> corporate buyer of products or services -- you'll join the fight against
> UCITA when it arrives in your state.
>
> Who wants this bill? Basically, the software industry -- one of the
> wealthiest, most influential businesses around. There's never enough for
> this crowd, apparently.
>
> But the list of endorsers also includes some major industrial companies. By
> some reckonings, UCITA could end up governing any product that has any
> software in it. Since new cars, refrigerators and all kinds of other
> products now contain microprocessors -- and processors contain software -- a
> variety of longstanding consumer rights could disappear into UCITA.
...

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