Software vendor liability is the issue of

product liability Product liability is the area of law in which manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, retailers, and others who make products available to the public are held responsible for the injuries those products cause. Although the word "product" has ...

for

software bug A software bug is a design defect ( bug) in computer software. A computer program with many or serious bugs may be described as ''buggy''. The effects of a software bug range from minor (such as a misspelled word in the user interface) to sev ...

s that cause harm, such as

security bug A security bug or security defect is a software bug that can be exploited to gain unauthorized access or privileges on a computer system. Security bugs introduce security vulnerabilities by compromising one or more of: * Authentication of users ...

s or bugs causing medical errors. For the most part, this liability does not exist in the United States. The possibility of liability is excluded for most software in the European Union

Product Liability Directive 1985 The Product Liability Directive''85/374/EECis a directive of the Council of the European Communities (now the European Union) which created a regime of strict liability for defective products applicable in all member states of the European Union, ...

but is explicitly provided for in the update issued in 2024.

References

Product liability Software law {{Law-stub