Amazon inserts clause indemnifying them in event of zombie apocalypse

Every time I download a new app or update my phone or laptop software, I am ashamed. Ashamed, and, I admit, a bit furtive.

And it happens every single darn time. By now, I would have thought I’d be mentally prepared for this same old moment of deep conflict and inner torment, but somehow I always forget what is coming. Then, there it is, and I feel scalded.

You know exactly what I am talking about, don’t you? You do. You have been there, and shared the humiliation. You, too, know the existential torture that accompanies the “I agree” tick box for the terms and conditions – the one that drops down like a curtain of moral doom and demands that you agree that you have read and accept the software or service T&Cs.

But you haven’t read them at all. You are blissfully unaware of the terms and conditions. You have better things to do than read the terms and conditions.

Because as we all know, the T&Cs – sometimes also known as end user licence agreements or Eulas – are voluminous. And they take the legal mick. No one reads them, but we all go ahead and state that we have.

Well, except one guy at the Guardian last year, who decided to read all the T&Cs before using any online service for one week, including all the T&Cs of services he was already using. He started with the more than 21,000 words of the iPhone T&Cs. After seven days, he had spent a collective eight hours reading the dry legalese. Eight hours he will never have back in his life.

That’s why I just tick the “I agree” box. Even though I know I am agreeing to a legal contract. Even though I care about privacy and want to know whether a company is trying to slip something over on me. Even though I am – okay, I’ll just admit it – lying.

Ethics police

That’s why I feel ashamed. That’s why I always feel sneaky and furtive. Did anyone see that Eula on my screen? Did they notice I ticked the “I agree”, when I clearly had not first clicked in to the entire document and read it? Did they report me? Are the ethics police even now on their way?

Some companies rely on the fact that you don’t read the Eula, because if you did, you might change your mind about using that free app, or that social media service, or signing up online to attend that event, or visiting that website.

As the Eula states somewhere in its thousands of words, many want to get hold of your data and do things you didn’t realise with it. You don’t notice, though, because you just tick “I agree”.

This is also the deceptive truth about many of the so-called privacy policies that websites have (and in some cases and places, are required to have). One academic study a few years ago calculated that it would take 250 work hours, or 30 work days, to read all the privacy policies the average person encounters online in a year. So we don’t.

According to the study, the average privacy policy comes in at about 2,500 words, or a tenth of the Apple iPhone Eula. But even at that relative brevity, who reads them?

If you want to generate your own, however, there are plenty of automatic privacy policy generator websites. At first I thought these were a joke, like that corporate mission statement generator website (http://cmorse.org/missiongen/).

But no: they are real, which kind of says everything about the deep value (not) placed on privacy policies.

Actually, it turns out there's a real mission statement generator website, too – here: msb.franklincovey – just in case you you need one of those to go with your automated privacy policy and can't bear to put any personal effort into anything.

And here’s something shocking that you need to know. Companies have relied on the fact that you don’t read Eulas to insert a clause indemnifying them against the zombie apocalypse. Really.

This week, some person with too much time on their hands discovered that the new Amazon Web Services agreement – which is massive – has this special exemption way down in clause 57.10. I checked. It's there.

“However, this restriction will not apply in the event of the occurrence (certified by the United States Centers for Disease Control or successor body) of a widespread viral infection transmitted via bites or contact with bodily fluids that causes human corpses to reanimate and seek to consume living human flesh, blood, brain or nerve tissue and is likely to result in the fall of organised civilisation.”

Well, to be honest, that only seems fair. I’d agree to that, whether I’d read it or not.