I occasionally read the e-mails I receive from the Ziff Davis Web Buyer’s Guide. The Skype headline caught my eye and I decided to take a closer look.
Skype End User Licence Agreement
Article 4 Permission to Utilize
4.1 Permission to utilize Your computer. In order to receive the benefits provided by the Skype Software, You hereby grant permission for the Skype Software to utilize the processor and bandwidth of Your computer for the limited purpose of facilitating the communication between Skype Software users.
4.2 Protection of Your computer (resources). You understand that the Skype Software will use its commercially reasonable efforts to protect the privacy and integrity of Your computer resources and Your communication, however, You acknowledge and agree that Skype cannot give any warranties in this respect.”
When I signed up for Skype I was a bit concerned about this. The agreement did not limit the use of my computer to my own use of Skype. I still signed up. The computer I use for Skype is not a part of an enterprise network and thus a limited security risk.
I can see the issue on an enterprise level though.
It also brings to mind other “enterprise” issues. A few years (late 1990s) ago I was researching chat and message boards for use in communicating with a distribution network of financial advisors. The research did not take very long - the corporate IT department had shut down any access to chat forums and I was not about to take them on to get access to such tools for the marketing and sales departments. Maybe I should have, but with limited resources you have to “pick your fights”. The bottom line is that IT ended up deciding on my communication strategy - without discussing the impact with me as a user
roar at roarweb dot com
Note: This post moved from Blogger December 6, 2005
