Why do people make License Agreements unable to be Resized?

[DodgerH2O]

Really just the topic title. It might be a Windows thing? But every time a bit of software requires me to agree to a wall of text it keeps the window tiny and thus the font correspondingly tiny. I know "nobody reads those" but I really try to and succeed at least most of the time. Is this some limitation of coding or just intention to prevent people from actually reading them? Some other factor that I haven't considered? Maybe I can resize them and just haven't figured out how?

I tried looking it up but my Googlemancy failed me so I bring the question to you fine folk.

[gomipile]

I don't think there is a single satisfying answer to this. At least not one most game company lawyers would sign off on being said in public. Here's a link to a discussion I found about this topic:

https://ux.stackexchange.com/questio...e-box-with-lot

[Telok]

Is this some limitation of coding

It's not a coding limitation. It really isn't hard to make things scalable or sizable these days.

That said, if I ever put out a EULA it will be an amalgamation of several of them from major companies in a small window with no ability to resize, no ability to cut and paste, encoded into the program so there's no human readable file, and have a clause about the reader agreeing to give me lots of money. Plus several secret messages, because those are just fun.

[Binks]

I don't think there is a single satisfying answer to this. At least not one most game company lawyers would sign off on being said in public. Here's a link to a discussion I found about this topic:

https://ux.stackexchange.com/questio...e-box-with-lot

As someone who works on code for a living, this is pretty much it. 99.99% of users just click through the Eula without reading, and they're usually provided on a site somewhere for the people who actually want to read them. Why spend time ensuring that the box is resizable and modifiable when that time could be spent on the actual application? Standardize it -> Test it once -> Ship it and forget about it.

Coders aren't lawyers and don't care about that text anymore than the average person (less in many cases), so whoever had to build it just grabbed whatever was available, whether it was a good fit or not. Sticking a text area in the middle of an existing dialog and filling it with the Eula text is a lot easier than building it its own window...

[Avilan the Grey]

Yeah, there's even usually three options these days:
Read, go to homepage or download as PDF.

[keybounce]

I have not seen "read on webpage".

I am someone that uses 22 point fonts on-screen. Guess how many EULA's are readable to me?

I think the answer is, "Because there are no laws requiring anything more, and this way we can say that you had the opportunity to agree".

Oh, and those webpages that force 11pt times new roman even if I want 22 point comic sans? Yea, I hate those.

[zimmerwald1915]

I think the answer is, "Because there are no laws requiring anything more, and this way we can say that you had the opportunity to agree".

This is correct.

Thanks, Easterbrook.

[Bohandas]

They make it difficult because they don't want you to read them. Like any contract that you have to sign to do something or use something or work somewhere they just want you to come to the crossroads and sign.

[tomandtish]

When was the last time you read all the terms and conditions for a service you used? Have you ever read the terms and conditions? Probably not.

So why do we spend so much of our time ignoring the thousands of words of legally binding “end-user licence agreements” (EULAs, if you like) legally-binding contracts we agree to every day? Is it even possible to read the T&Cs for everything a typical person does? Is there any value in reading all this anyway?

Very much this. And it is definitely in a businesses interest to make sure you don;t read the fine print.

On the serious side of things, KB homes used to sneak language into their agreements that you could not criticize the company openly. They also snuck in language that stated you agreed to use arbitration (and THEIR arbiter) if anything went wrong. You could not take them to court. Quite a few people ended up being sued by KB for violating these.

On the humorous side of things, a friend of mine who wrote the disclaimer where I work snuck a sentence in there that every employee agreed to give him money every month.....

It was over a year before anyone noticed it.