So this morning in my regular internet browsing I found an interesting article Ed Bott at ZDNet regarding the End User License Agreement for the beta that was leaked to the internet. As part of a previous job I got in to the habit of reading EULA’s but now that its not required reading for me I have just been kind of ignoring them. The one part of the agreement that surprised me was about benchmarking Windows 7.

You may not disclose the results of any benchmark tests of the software to any third party without Microsoft’s prior written approval.

Benchmarking is one of the core components of a full review. Without benchmarks the review really isn’t complete and may even be severely biased. If Microsoft really has done a good thing with Windows 7 they should allow anyone to benchmark it and publish the reviews. As it stands right now the only people that would be able to petition Microsoft for permission are going to be guys like Paul Thurrott.

Check It Out> ZDNet