The (Not So) Great Google Chrome EULA Debacle

I know there has been much discussion about the terms and conditions for Chrome. For the record I was totally aware of them. But I think that some of it was a bit fear-mongering and misrepresentative and some of it was out right wrong. As far as I am concerned a clause like the old clause 11 (extracted below) was nothing out of the ordinary really:

You retain copyright an any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, public, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sold purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

As much as I don't like people having to give up rights at all, the original term is pretty standard practice. I mean, look at the terms of use of most of the major social networks—for example clause 6, subclause 1 of the MySpace Terms and Conditions—they all take a licence from users to user content uploaded to the service/website to do stuff in relation to the service you've signed up to.

At least Google qualified the extent of the licence voluntarily (like many services are now doing), saying that the licence allowed them to use your content in relation to Google Chrome only. They weren't even taking rights to reuse that content on other Google services. The licence Facebook takes is far worse than Google's original term:

...By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing...

Anyway, regardless, as announced yesterday, Google changed the term. The new clause 11 in the EULA reads:

You retain copyright an any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, public, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sold purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

I was more fascinated by the sloppy drafting in relation to clause 10.2. It reads:

You may not (and you may not permit anyone else to) copy, modify, create a derivative work of, reverse engineer, decompile or otherwise attempt to extract the source code of the Software or any part thereof, unless this is expressly permitted or required by law, or unless you have been specifically told that you may do so by Google, in writing.

I thought Chrome was open source?! Funnily enough at the beginning of the EULA, before clause 1, it states:

These Terms of Service apply to the executable code version of Google Chrome. Source code for Google Chrome is available free of charge under open source software license agreements at http://code.google.com/chromium/terms.html.

The licence that Chromium is under is a BSD Licence. At the Google Code Chromium page the terms of the BSD Licence are stated as:

BSD License
Copyright © 2008, The Chromium Authors
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

• Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
  
• Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
  
• Neither the name of the Google Inc. nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
  

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

This statement could be seen as express permission from Google to modify the source code but it seems strange to have a clause stating that you can't change the source code only the have another statement earlier in the document that says you can.