Users look to FTC for help on reining in UCITA

Computerworld - WASHINGTON -- Horizon Blue Cross/Blue Shield of New Jersey is located in a state that hasn't adopted the new UCITA software licensing law, but that doesn't mean the Newark-based insurer doesn't have to deal with the controversial measure.

An unnamed software vendor that the insurer is currently negotiating with over a licensing deal is adamantly insisting that a version of the law enacted in Maryland at the start of this month be applied to the contract. Arne Larsen, information systems director at the 5,000-employee insurer, said the vendor is an anomaly among the many he deals with on software licensing. But that's of little comfort to him, he added.

UCITA -- the Uniform Computer Information Transaction Act -- is "a one-sided law," Larsen said this week. "It protects the software vendors. It does nothing for us." Such sentiments are among the reasons why Larsen and other users support the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) decision to begin exploring software-licensing practices at a two-day workshop that began here today.

The FTC is making a broad-brush examination of common software licensing practices, looking at such questions as whether the lack of disclosure of warranty and licensing terms until after a sale gets made is fair to users (see story). It's also exploring whether embedded computer systems found in products such as automobiles will have the liability-limiting warranty terms allowed by UCITA, a state-level law that strengthens the ability of software vendors to enforce the warranty provisions in licensing agreements.

"We really have much to learn," said Eileen Harrington, associate director of the division of marketing practices at the Bureau of Consumer Protection, during today's FTC hearing. "We certainly don't feel yet that we have a deep enough grasp of all the different points of view that exist around high-tech warranty issues,"

Industry representatives invited to speak at the workshop said they credited current software licensing approaches with giving vendors the flexibility to tailor software to specific end-user needs, as well as with helping to foster the growth of the market.

Mark Bohannon, general counsel at the Software & Information Industry Association in Washington, argued that licensing is the only means of providing continued services, such as those established by an application service provider (ASP). "There is no one-time sale," he said, adding that a deal between a vendors and a user "is in fact an ongoing subscription relationship."

Bohannon and other software-industry members also defended UCITA, which has been adopted in Maryland and Virginia and is being considered by other states. The