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Beyond Shrinkwrap 

The next generation of contract has been invented, naturally by Microsoft.
If you go to the WWW site www.newyork.sidewalk.com (which offers an array
of information on entertainment, tourism, restaurants, etc. in NYC), you
will find a discreet list of links (less noticeable than the gaudier
content links) like "About Sidewalk", "Advertiser index," and finally
"Terms and conditions".  That begins a very long page of claimers and
disclaimers, but the opening is remarkable:

	MICROSOFT(c) SIDEWALK(tm) WEB SITE TERMS,
        CONDITIONS, AND NOTICES

        AGREEMENT BETWEEN USER AND MICROSOFT

	This Web site is offered to the user conditioned on the user's
	acceptance without modification of the terms, conditions and
	notices contained herein. By accessing and using this Web site,
	the user is deemed to have agreed to all such terms, conditions
	and notices. 

This contract is not on the outside of the package and it is both easy and
natural to make use of the site without ever looking at this page.  (It
was called to my attention since, among other things, it asserts
Microsoft's right to collect whatever personal information it can about
you and to "share" it with others -- spam-marketers and the like --
without your permission.)

Since the copyright notice further down the page makes a blanket ban on
any modification, copying, distributing, transmitting, etc., etc., of any
information from that site, I feel obliged to say that I believe my
quotation above is covered as an example of fair use "for purposes such as
criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies
for classroom use), scholarship, or research" (sec. 107, Copyright Act of
1976).

Jim O'Donnell
Classics, U. of Penn
jod@ccat.sas.upenn.edu


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