Yet another major online service is getting into the online Movie distribution game… Amazon. Now, I LOVE Amazon. I get almost half of my books from them and their service is always top notch… but a bunch of readers have been sending me links regarding the Amazon Unbox program that quite frankly scares the hell out of me.
The folks over at Boingboing have put up a comprehensive analysis of the dreaded “terms of service” agreement that they make you enter into… and my friends… it is indeed horror:
When you sign onto Unbox, you sign away all the amazing customer rights that Amazon itself is so careful to protect. Amazon Unbox takes away your privacy and every conceivable consumer right you have, and then tells you that the goods you buy from them don’t belong to you, and they can take them away from you at any time, or change the deal you get from them without any appeal by you.
Amazon Unbox’s user agreement isn’t just galling for its evilness — it’s also commercially suicidal. No sane person will agree to this. Amazon Unbox user agreement is only a couple femtometers more dignified than being traded to another inmate for a couple packs of cigarettes.
The article is quite long, but trust me… it’s well worth the read. If you or anyone you know have been considering using the AMazon Unbox program, I strongly suggest you go over and read through this article before you make any decisions. I know I won’t be using it.
Wow…and ouch.
While I’m sure the Boing blog’s comments are a bit stretched [Amazon’s subsidary turns into Big Brother] there is still some truth to it, or at least wording that is not intended to be interpeted in such ways, but could be, and it could generate confusion. Amazon should clear it up, or make such things user friendly.
I’m sure my ol’ friend Scott has nothing to do with this. [He’s a senior web designer for Amazon]
Wow. That’s a little scary. Thanks for the heads up.
Wow.
Never avoiding reading a lengthy sign up agreement ever again.
Unbox?
More like Dungbox.
Is it amazon.com or is it BigBrother.com
You pay us money to let us do anything we want with what you “bought” and the entire contents of your personal computer.
Jiminy Christmas, do they really think this will appeal to anyone?
I took a look at it, and thought the idea was good, but the execution again sucked. There were a number of things I didn’t like about it, not the least of which was the out-of-line cost and the proprietary Amazon player required.
Then I saw these three little words – US Customers Only – and went on my merry way without the Unnecessary Unimpressive Unbox. Now I read this and am glad I got frozen out. They can keep it.
The trick is that they make user agreements so insanely long that nobody bothers to even read them. So they’ll sucker in a lot of people who will certainly get more than they bargained for.