I have now compared the current EULA with
Plesk Product EULA v.8 (16 January 2024), and I want to be quite clear: I consider the way this is being handled
unacceptable.
This is not merely an unfortunate UX issue or a badly designed dialog. It is an extraordinarily customer-hostile way to change the contractual basis of a product that customers already depend on in production.
The practical sequence is this:
- Plesk updates itself automatically.
- Afterwards, the customer is confronted with a substantially expanded EULA.
- Continued normal use effectively requires acceptance.
- “Declining” is not a realistic option for somebody operating production servers.
In other words, the contractual change is presented
after the technical change has already happened, at a point where the customer is under considerable operational pressure to click “Accept”.
I find that approach frankly outrageous.
Unfortunately, it also fits into what, from my perspective as a long-term Plesk customer, has been a broader deterioration since Plesk became part of WebPros. In particular, customers have already had to deal with repeated and substantial price increases, where it is the question if WebPros uses its quasi-monopoly. Against that background, introducing further contractual changes in this manner creates the impression that the relationship is becoming increasingly one-sided: higher prices, broader rights for WebPros, more obligations and liability shifted to the customer, while the customer's practical ability to reject changes becomes smaller and smaller.
That is not how trust in a business relationship is built. What customers are being asked to accept today is far from a cosmetic revision.
Since v.8, the agreement has grown substantially. Among other things, it now contains:
- a new provision allowing license prices to be changed for subsequent renewal terms;
- a new provision allowing WebPros to use business customers' contractual contact details, including their email address, for promotional purposes unless they actively opt out;
- extensive new terms for Site Quality Monitoring;
- extensive SiteJet terms concerning customer content, integrations, liability and indemnification;
- a very substantial WebPros Nova section covering third-party LLMs, prompt processing, AI Act obligations, liability exclusions and indemnification;
- and an additional Third Party Extension End User License Agreement.
I find the new marketing provision particularly distasteful.
I provided my contractual email address because it is necessary for the business relationship and operation of the product. Turning that address into a marketing contact by default, unless I discover the relevant sentence somewhere inside a lengthy new EULA and actively object, is the kind of
opt-out-by-legal-small-print practice I would not expect from a professional infrastructure software vendor.
It is especially inappropriate to introduce such a provision inside an agreement that customers are effectively pressured to accept in order to continue administering their servers.
There is also the question of language.
I use Plesk in
German. I am a German customer. WebPros International GmbH is based in
Schaffhausen, in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. Yet when I am expected to make a legally relevant decision about a materially changed contract, I am presented with an English-only legal document, with the English version declared authoritative.
I can read English. That is not the issue.
The issue is that a company capable of localising its software interface into German should also be capable of presenting material contractual changes in the language in which it sells and operates the product (and I would assume that legally binding regulations should be in the local language of the company offering them). It is particularly strange when even the company's own registered location is in a German-speaking jurisdiction.
And even if WebPros insists on English as the governing contractual language, there is absolutely no reasonable excuse for not providing a
clear summary of the changes. That should be the bare minimum. When an existing customer is expected to accept a changed EULA, the dialog should clearly show:
- the previous EULA version and date;
- the new version and date;
- the effective date;
- a concise summary of every material change;
- ideally a diff;
- which changes concern ordinary Plesk usage and which apply only to optional products such as SiteJet or Nova;
- and the exact consequences of declining.
Instead, customers are effectively told: here are many pages of English legal text — please read them now and click Accept if you want to continue running your server.
That is not meaningful transparency. It is shifting the burden entirely onto the customer.
There is also an obvious inconsistency in the current agreement itself: For
price changes, WebPros explicitly recognises the distinction between the current paid term and the next renewal term: amended license fees only become applicable at the beginning of a subsequent renewal term.
That raises a very simple question:
If WebPros considers it appropriate to wait until the next renewal before imposing a new price, why are material changes to the contractual terms themselves being imposed during an already running and already paid annual license period?
Why not notify the customer in advance and make the new EULA applicable upon the next renewal? That would give the customer an actual commercial choice. What is happening now does not.
For a production server, “decline the EULA and stop using Plesk” after the product has already automatically updated itself is not a meaningful alternative. It is leverage created by technical dependency. So I would like WebPros to address the substance of the issue, not merely say that the “in-panel EULA update distribution process” may be improved.
The problem is not just how the dialog looks. The problem is the underlying approach. After years of increasingly difficult pricing decisions, this kind of forced mid-term contractual update further damages confidence that WebPros sees its existing customers as partners rather than as a captive installed base.
At an absolute minimum, future EULA changes should be:
- announced before the relevant automatic software update with an option to refuse the update and use the existing software under the current regulations until the license expires;
- versioned and archived publicly;
- accompanied by a proper change summary and preferably a diff;
- available in the customer's product language;
- and, where they materially change an existing commercial relationship, applied at the next renewal rather than being forced on customers in the middle of an already paid term
That would be transparent, professional and fair. The current process is none of those things.
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