User:AnotherConsumerRightsPerson/Article making space

Article number 1 - Retroactively amended purchase

Overview

Retroactively amended purchases highlight a broader issue of ownership and consumer rights in a world increasingly dominated by digital locks, proprietary architectures, and subscription-based models. It often includes changes that render products non-functional or limit their intended use, sparking debates about fairness, transparency, and ethical business practices.

Characteristics

Retroactively amended purchases typically involve:

• Dependence on External Infrastructure: Changes to servers, authentication systems, or online services that limit the product's usability.
• Proprietary Restrictions: Use of client—server architectures or digital locks that enforce control over post-purchase use.
• Policy Updates: Alterations to terms of service or warranty agreements that impose new restrictions or conditions on previously purchased items.
• Consumer Disadvantage: Negative impacts on the buyer, including loss of functionality, increased costs, or decreased value.

Examples

Revoking perpetual license

Some companies change the language of their End-user license agreements to revoke the rights of the consumer for products they've paid for, such as revoking a perpetual license and, oftentimes, replacing it with a subscription model^{[citation needed - give example]}.

“License euthanasia” is the practice of revoking perpetual licenses under the pretext that the company is looking out for the user’s best interest by forcing them to update to a later version. This term was coined by consumer-rights advocate Louis Rossmann, who observed that Final Draft’s description of an older version of its software as being “of advanced age” “made it sound like they’re doing the kind thing” by putting old software out of its misery.

Software deprecation

Products reliant on proprietary authentication servers are often decommissioned when companies phase out support. For example, certain smart-home devices became inoperable after their manufacturers shut down the servers required for functionality.

Policy-driven changes

Retroactive enforcement of warranty conditions, such as voiding coverage for using third-party components, alters the original purchase agreement to the detriment of the consumer.

Ethical concerns

Retroactively amending a purchase raises significant ethical questions:

• Erosion of consumer trust: Buyers expect the terms of their purchase to remain consistent over time.
• Violation of ownership rights: Restricting post-purchase use undermines the principle of ownership.
• Imbalanced power dynamics: Consumers often have little recourse against providers imposing unilateral changes.

Provider responsibilities

Providers hold significant responsibility in ensuring that post-purchase changes do not undermine consumer trust or violate fair-trade principles. To uphold these standards:

• Transparency: Providers must clearly disclose any potential for post-purchase changes at the point of sale. This includes:
  • Highlighting dependencies on proprietary infrastructure (e.g., authentication servers or cloud services).
  • Clearly stating expiration dates for critical functionality tied to subscriptions or external support.

• Grace periods: Providers should offer extended notice periods before implementing changes that impact functionality. This ensures consumers have time to make informed decisions or adjustments, such as:
  • Migrating to alternative solutions.
  • Backing up critical data or content.

• Alternatives: Providers should offer reasonable alternatives to consumers affected by decommissioned services or features. These alternatives may include:
  • Open access to protocols or APIs, enabling third-party or community support.
  • Buyback programs or refunds for products rendered non-functional.
  • Migration tools to other platforms or devices.

• Commitment to longevity: Providers should design products and services to prioritize longevity, avoiding reliance on:
  • Digital Locks: Locks that prevent users from independently maintaining or modifying purchased products.
  • Proprietary Client-Server Architectures: Systems that artificially limit functionality to a specific service or server controlled solely by the provider.

• Respect for ownership: Providers must respect the principle of ownership. Once a product is purchased, consumers should have the freedom to use, repair, and maintain it without interference from retroactive changes or unjust restrictions.

Broader implications

The practice of retroactively amending purchases reflects a troubling trend in consumer-facing industries:

• Erosion of ownership rights: Increasing reliance on digital control mechanisms shifts power away from buyers.
• Data and privacy concerns: The integration of data-dependent features into consumer goods complicates ownership and privacy rights.
• Precedent for anti-consumer behavior: Allowing such practices to persist normalizes anti-consumer policies.

Conclusion

Purchases that are retroactively amended undermine consumer trust, erode ownership rights, and create unfair power dynamics. Providers must adhere to ethical principles, ensuring transparency, fairness, and respect for ownership. Advocacy for stronger consumer-protection laws and broader adoption of open standards can help mitigate these challenges.

See also

• Retroactive policy enforcement
• Right to repair

References

Category:Anti-Consumer_Practices Category:Common terms Category:Consumer rights Category:Retroactively amended purchase Category:Right to repair Category:Rights Stripping Category:Subscription-based services

Article number 2 - Post-purchase EULA modification

Post-purchase end-user license agreement (EULA) modification, colloquially referred to as the ‘EULA roofie’ is when the terms that govern a customer’s use of a product or service are modified after the initial purchase.

Particularly insidious examples of this practice include Adobe’s EULA changes, which required users to accept the use of their art and media for the training of AI, or face the loss of access to Adobe products^{[citation needed]}. It was felt by a number of prominent creative professionals that this amounted to a substantial changing of the ‘deal’ they were offered at the time of purchase, effectively amounting to the theft of their creative efforts, particularly for controversial issues such as AI training. Many creative professionals are deeply entrenched in the Adobe ecosystem, and would suffer substantial financial harm if they were to suddenly stop using Adobe products, as the time taken to learn alternative tools would directly correlate to lost work and payment. Combined with Adobe’s practice of charging a premium for the privilege of early subscription cancellation^{[citation needed]}, users who did not want their art used for AI training were unethically forced into choosing between their livelihood and their integrity.

Because of the nature of the agreements, legal professionals[who?] have argued that many cases of such contract changes are unenforceable when the users have not been properly informed of contractual changes, and those changes are beyond what would be expected in a typical contract of this type^{[citation needed]}. The reality for the average user, however, is that they cannot realistically challenge such a change, because of the costs involved with litigation, and instead must accept the choice they are offered: accept the new terms or lose the product or service they already own.

Types

Revoking perpetual license

Some companies change the language of their End-user license agreements to revoke the rights of the consumer for products they've paid for, such as revoking a perpetual license and, oftentimes, replacing it with a subscription model^{[citation needed - give example]}.

“License euthanasia” is the practice of revoking perpetual licenses under the pretext that the company is looking out for the user’s best interest by forcing them to update to a later version. This term was coined by consumer-rights advocate Louis Rossmann, who observed that Final Draft’s description of an older version of its software as being “of advanced age” “made it sound like they’re doing the kind thing” by putting old software out of its misery.

The viability of a lifetime license is dependent on the product's operational costs and its monetization plan.

Products that require recurring operational costs for their necessary advertised functions (backend service upkeep, staff involvement, etc.) can't function on their own without income. Lifetime license users may be serviced at a loss compared to subscription-based users who meet the recurring revenue operational cost demand. The price difference between a lifetime license and a subscription-based license only offsets the threshold of when a lifetime subscription customer becomes unprofitable to service.

The ‘EULA roofie’

The use of the colloquial term ‘EULA roofie’ stems from comparisons between the practice of post-purchase EULA modification, and the practice of spiking a drink – where consent is sought and given for the consumption of the drink, but not for the consumption of whatever it has been spiked with. The most common association with this term is when a company retroactively amends their terms to introduce forced arbitration, such as with Nintendo in advance of the release of the Nintendo Switch 2^{[citation needed]}.

Retroactive policy enforcement

Main article: Retroactive policy enforcement

Retroactive policy enforcement occurs when companies or platforms introduce new rules, policies, or enforcement mechanisms and apply them to agreements, content, or actions that predate the policy change. This practice has significant implications for consumers, ranging from loss of access to purchased goods or services, to privacy violations, and even irreversible consequences.

Legislative action

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See Also

• Retroactively amended purchase

Category:Anti-Consumer_Practices Category:Common terms Category:Rights Stripping

Merged version (me merging the two articles above I’ve edited)

Post-purchase EULA modification is where the terms, functionality, or usability of a product or service are altered after the purchase. These changes may result from policy updates, the deprecation of supporting infrastructure, or other modifications that affect the consumer’s ability to fully use or benefit from their purchase.

Rejecting these contractual changes are often impossible without the consumer either losing access to the product or service they paid for^{[citation needed - give example]} or losing substantial functionality^{[citation needed - give example]}. In some cases, no ‘reject’ option is given, other than to power off the product and never use it again (such as the case of the Roku smart TV,^{[citation needed]}) or the deletion of an account (such as with PayPal^{[citation needed]} and Nintendo^{[citation needed]}).

EULA modifications may sometimes work in the consumer’s favor (such as Valve removing forced arbitration Steam's terms of service) or simply serve to clarify or correct terms in a reasonable way and which does not adversely affect the consumer.

Responses to, and defenses used for, post-purchase EULA modification

Many arguments intended to defend post-purchase EULA modification cite the legitimate reasons for such an action, as described above^{[citation needed]}. They argue that it would not be practical to maintain a long-running service without being able to occasionally change or clarify their terms. Others will attempt to defend their actions by deflecting from the issue, such as in [this] case, where Repairshopr defended their decision to alter their EULA to allow them to collect user interaction logs for AI training by simply pretending that they would never do such a thing, and acting as if there were no substantial changes to their EULA which would allow them to collect and process data in that way (of course, this was done without explicitly stating that no such change had occurred)^{[citation needed]}.

A common argument against the importance of this issue is that any user still needs to accept the changes^{[citation needed]} in order to be bound by the new EULA, and that the previous EULA may have included language stating that the company may alter the terms of the EULA after purchase. This argument, however, fails to account for the situation the user will typically find themselves in. In most cases, users are given a simple ‘tickbox’, without proper summarisation of the changes contained in the EULA update^{[citation needed]}. If the user does not accept this change, they will be unable to use the product which they purchased. Many users may simply accept the EULA changes in order to regain access to their product.

In extreme cases, companies may take a lack of action as consent, as was the case in this incident [link to that sock company thing], where non-response to an email was considered by the company to be appropriate consent for a change to the EULA^{[citation needed]}.