Daily Mail on Chrome

It’s very unlikely that you haven’t heard of Chrome, the browser that Google launched last week. If you’re running Windows then you may have even tried it out.

Those of you (and I assume it’s most of you) who follow tech news will also know that there was some confusion over Chrome’s licence agreement during the week. On Wednesday it was noticed that the agreement (which everyone is bound by when using the software) claimed that Google had full rights to do whatever it wanted with any data that you submitted through the browser. Uproar ensued for a few hours until Google realised its mistake, apologised and removed the offending clause. By Thursday lunchtime everything was fine again.

But not in the world of the Daily Mail. For some reason they decided to run the story about Chrome’s licence today. Why they didn’t run it on Thursday or Friday when the story was still fresh, I don’t know, but it’s there on their web site today. Of course as the confusion over the licence has all been resolved, they mention that in the fourth and fifth paragraphs.

Google’s ‘End User License Agreement’ (EULA) attracted so many complaints in a 24-hour period that it was forced to edit the offending clause.

It now states that users ‘retain copyright and any other rights’ that they hold on material posted or submitted online.

But it seems that isn’t clear enough for Mail readers, some of whom have left comments on the story demonstrating that they obviously haven’t managed to get that far into the story. Maybe they only read the headline before becoming so insensed that they had to post a comment. Here are some examples:

Sounds like an excellent reason to steer well clear of it – Fred James, Worcester, UK

Thank you Daily Mail.You have just stopped me from downloading this new Browser. – william

I’m uninstalling… – Phillie L Hall, Abu Dhabi

All in all it seems that these particular Mail readers fail at basic comprehension.

Update: I’ve just noticed that at the top of their story, the Mail describe this problematic clause as a “hidden” clause. In what way was it hidden? It was just part of the licence agreement. It was only hidden in the same way that all clauses of all licences are hidden – because no-one ever reads them.