Vincent Gable’s Blog

January 15, 2010

EULA Today Fail

Filed under: Announcement,iPhone | , , , , , ,
― Vincent Gable on January 15, 2010

The EULA1 for the USA TODAY iPhone App starts off

General

These Terms of Service govern your use of the USATODAY.com website (the “Site”) only and do not govern your use of other USA TODAY services, such as services offered by the USA TODAY print newspaper.

Clearly this invalidates the agreement on the iPhone, since the iPhone App is not “the USATODAY.com website”.

This is mildly embarrassing for USA TODAY, and even more of a fumble for Mercury Intermedia, who built the app. But I can’t think of any way this actually hurts anyone, even in theory. Users are already bound by the App Store Terms and Conditions, so why bother putting your own EULA (that nobody’s ever going to read much less care about) in your app?

1To see the EULA, tap that little i near the bottom left of the homescreen, then tap Terms of Service. The text above was copied from version 1.5 of the USA TODAY iPhone App.

Powered by WordPress