Thinking Out Of The (Amazon) Unbox
Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa1
Not only was I wrong, but I was wrong for the least likely of reasons - a failure of my obsessiveness, cynicism, and suspicion.
Recently, I recommended (see Freebie Amazon Video Download) a free introductory video download Amazon.com was offering to introduce their Unbox service.
The free video part was just that — a gratis video download. So far, so good. The problem was that I didn’t read the fine print, in this case, the fine print of the terms of service agreement to which customers had to agree before downloading a Unbox video.
And I didn’t read it, I’m chagrined to admit, because I never saw the agreement. My satellite internet access effectively blocks such sizable downloads so I couldn’t complete the transaction. I checked for other quirks (e.g., any commitment to continue the service or the necessity to opt out or be automatically charged for the next offering) but I did not think about the terms of service agreement. That, in retrospect, seems an understandable error but nonetheless an error.
And, even if I had seen the contract or thought to check it out, I might well have skipped it, partially because it is long and legalese-laden, but primarily because I would have assumed Amazon wouldn’t insist on an agreement that was incongruent with its core principles of customer service.
You see, I’ve had nothing but stellar service from Amazon; and I’ve bought plenty of books, CDs, furniture, electronics, cameras, office supplies, cosmetics, food, clothing, and much more over the years so Jeff Bezos has had a multitude of chances to increase his profits by refusing a return, for example, or by exploiting a pricing misunderstanding. When problems have occurred, they have been resolved - in every single case - in my favor, including one episode in which Amazon compensated me for a denied rebate on an item I purchased from Amazon even though the rebate had been offered (and denied) by the manufacturer and Amazon had no responsibility or even knowledge of it.
That assumption was wrong. I am formally apologizing because I continuously importune others to follow the principle of caveat emptor and because I recommended the Unbox service. Despite my sometimes cavalier tone, I take this stuff seriously, and readers have a right to expect that I practice what I preach.
The Contract
[Note: By reducing the font size to 7 and squeezing the lines together to the extent possible, I was able to reduce the agreement from its original 17 pages to only 8 pages.]
As far as the content of Amazon’s Unbox agreement, AKA Evil Incarnate, I urge you to check out Cory Doctorow’s point-by-point dissection of the contract, which can be found at
BoingBoing On Amazon Unbox’s User Agreement
The following excerpt, however, aptly characterizes the entire essay:
Amazon Unbox user agreement is only a couple femtometers2 more dignified than being traded to another inmate for a couple packs of cigarettes.
Suffice it to say that the agreement permits Amazon to install software on the buyer’s computer that could monitor licenses, report back to Amazon and others about ones viewing and listening habits, upgrade itself without the owner’s knowledge, and execute many other nefarious deeds.
I hope any of you who were interested in this service were smart enough to read the agreement first, sneer, and reject the deal. If you have downloaded from Amazon Unbox, I suggest you request a refund and delete the whole mess. (Deleting the software also deletes the movies.)
Once again, mea culpa, my bad, and extended apologies.
I’ll be more careful in the future.
Footnotes
- Don’t you agree that the more complete quote, “Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa,” (translated as “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault”) excerpted from the Catholic confessional prayer, Confiteor, is much more emphatic than the typical partial excerpt, “Mea Culpa” - as per my contention in an earlier post, Quasi-Quotation Quarantine? See, I’m not always wrong. ~back~
- I didn’t know what a femtometer was either, although I suspected it was pretty small. It is. The diameter of the nucleus of the U238 atom is 13.6 femtometers ~back~
I was so relieved that you didn’t know what a femtometer was either.
Comment by Mrs. Linklater — September 28, 2006 @ 12:19 pm