Days ago, I accompanied my sister to rent some DVDs at one place. We didn’t have any account yet, so we decided to register as a new member. Because of my sister working outside town, she asked me to use my id as the registration id. So then, the clerk gave me a form and asked me to write down my identity there. After finished, I must sign the form.

My sister did the writing work while I was wandering watched the movies. After she finished, I got back to her and read the form. Below the entry, I found some terms of services and agreements. I decided to read it. The clerk was still waiting for my sign. Impatient, she told me to sign it right away. She even asked me why I don’t mind spending time reading the TOS and agreement. I replied to her that I need to know the agreement before I signed it. What if there were some points in the agreement that I didn’t agree? From the why she acted, I knew that no one bother to read the agreement first. And I’m pretty sure of it.

License agreement

The situation made me think. Did everyone really care about agreements, terms of service, or maybe instruction manuals? We met them at various places and occations. Like when we’re installing software(s), do we read the licence agreement? When we’re using social networking services, do we read the terms of service and the privacy policy? When we’re using new hardwares or electronic stuffs, do we read the instruction and safety manuals?

If you’re dealing with software developments or services, thing like this become very important. You can’t just ignore this. If you done wrong with this kind of things, you may get yourself sued, wether by the service providers or by your own clients (Remember the Facebook case?).

So, from now on, I encourage you, and myself, to becareful about something that we didn’t read yet. Go and start read the unread.