"McAfee has pulled a fast one over on me," a reader we'll call Mr. Evergreen recently wrote. In November of 2002 Mr. Evergreen had purchased a one-year subscription to VirusScan. "Since I switched to Norton, I haven't used McAfee in over nine months. Now I have received a billing e-mail from McAfee stating that they are automatically renewing my VirusScan subscription. I sent an e-mail asking why I was billed and for a refund. They replied that when I subscribed I 'had to agree to the End User License Agreement that gave us Authorization to Automatically Renew you.' They wouldn't offer me a refund but they did state that I could logon to my customer account and change my settings so I wouldn't get billed automatically again. This is nothing short of amazing!"

The e-mail response from McAfee included Paragraph 10 of the EULA Mr. Evergreen had "agreed" to the year before. "Your subscription to the Software will be automatically renewed thirty (30) days prior to the expiration of your subscription at the then-current price, excluding promotional and discount pricing," it read in part. Mr. Evergreen couldn't remember for certain how much he had paid for his original subscription, but he was certain it was considerably less than the $59.90 McAfee had now charged to his credit card.

Before contacting Networking Associates (just as with VeriSign and Network Solutions, I've given up trying to keep track of whether Network Associates and McAfee consider themselves one entity or two at any given moment), I decided I ought to see how much notice of the automatic renewal a customer would find now if they went to the McAfee website. Nowhere on the VirusScan product information page or the links I followed from it could I find mention of automatic renewal. Even the "Which option is right for me" box, which explained how getting a subscription instead of a retail version with a perpetual license would guarantee up-to-date protection, didn't bother to mention that the subscription would be renewed automatically.

I was finally presented with the EULA after I started going through the steps to download a subscription from the McAfee website, but apparently not the same EULA cited to Mr. Evergreen. Down near the bottom this EULA did say that "upon expiration of your subscription to the Software, the Company may automatically renew your subscription to the Software at the then prevailing price using credit card information you have previously provided." It didn't say the renewal would take place 30 days beforehand, and neither did a similar fine-print notice on the bottom of the credit card billing page.

In other words, right now only a very sharp-eyed customer is going to spot any reference to the renewal policy before purchasing a subscription, and even then you won't be aware that you have to tell McAfee 30 days before the expiration date to avoid being charged for another year. (McAfee officials subsequently pointed out some references to the policy on web pages that are accessed through the Support section or an established customer's account page, but prospective customers are unlikely to see those unless they search for "automatic renewals" or something similar.) What chance that someone frantically looking for a product that will help them deal with a virus attack is going to notice they've "agreed" to let McAfee renew their subscription indefinitely?

Tracy Hulver, director of product management for the McAfee Security Consumer Division, doesn't think the automatic renewal policy is unusual. "Auto-renewal is a widely accepted practice in many consumer-based services such as cable TV, ISP services, etc.," Hulver says. "McAfee Security utilizes an auto-renewal mechanism for consumers who purchase our subscription services as well, but customers can choose to purchase a perpetual license instead. Auto-renewal allows us to help ensure our customer's security services are continuously protecting their systems, and the renewal is processed 30 days in advance to prevent any lapse in service due to a problem with the credit card."

According to Hulver, customers are never renewed for a higher price than the current subscription price at the time of the renewal. "We do often run discounts or rebates, but we can't guarantee we'll have one at the time of renewal." And he also says that McAfee policy is that customers who object to being renewed are entitled to a refund, so Mr. Evergreen should have gotten his money when he complained. "If this gentleman didn't get his money back, that was an error," says Hulver.

By the time I got back to Mr. Evergreen with this news, his threats to contact the BBB, his state attorney general, and people like me had resulted in McAfee refunding his money. So why he was charged $60 for the renewal, when the current VirusScan subscription price is $34.95, will have to remain a mystery. I have to wonder how many others who are less feisty than Mr. Evergreen just accepted the statement that the automatic renewal provision in McAfee's EULA gave the company the right to keep the money. (In case you don't know it, in many states "evergreen" clauses like this are by law unenforceable even when in signed contracts, much less a sneakwrap license.) I also wonder how many people who think they're no longer McAfee customers don't realize they're getting billed annually, particularly those who assume e-mail with "McAfee" in the subject line is spam and who don't check their credit card statements carefully.

What about Hulver's contention that this is no different than the cable company or ISP automatically charging your credit card once a month? Well, there's no question that's the way a lot of software companies would like to operate. But you know you're authorizing your ISP or cable company to charge your card. If that's the way software companies are going to sell their products, they should at least have the decency not to try to hide the fact in their fine print.

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