Question: Software, unlike most physical products you can buy, is sold with as few warranties as the vendor can get away with. As a developer, this seems very reasonable considering the quality of almost all software I've ever used - Think anything from unintuitive idioms, via undocumented features, irreproducibility, missing handling of concurrency, double escaping of user input, and floating point numbers where decimals would avoid long-term build-up of errors, to plain crashing bugs where the production database is corrupted and the equivalent of several hirings in the affected company are wasted on recovery and reactionary implementation of safety measures. It's a bit like building skyscrapers out of straw and nitroglycerin, hoping it will survive until the time when it's someone else's problem or it's replaced entirely.

In such a situation, I hypothesize that a company which trusts their software enough to provide even minor warranties for damages incurred would (if their software was up to the task) gain an enormous advantage in *user trust*, and could put Google, Microsoft and Apple to shame for quality software and hoarding of money and talent.

I'm not familiar with the current status of software verification and requirements gathering research, so I don't know whether this possibility is just around the corner or whether we are hacking at the mountain with toothpicks. Certainly the existence of any serious company or organization at all providing such warranties or even working on guidelines for warranties would be extremely interesting to follow, as both a developer and user.

Therefore: Are there any **international guidelines** for providing software warranties?

Examples:

* If all the tests succeed, as long as the system stays in a defined state, the warranty covers the cost of recovery in case of data loss.
* As long as [some widely recognized set of security guidelines] are followed, the data handled by the system will not be readable by third parties. The warranty could cover anything from the price of the software to the legal costs of handling privacy-related lawsuits or more.

Answer: 
You Have 2 basic kinds of software :

1) Off the Shelf, prepackage stuff - Usually The warranty for this covers only the cost of the software itself. It’s very similar to any other warranty. You buy it, it doesn't work, they will get it to work or refund your money. (Assuming they believe you.. you take MS office back to the store opened saying it won’t install, you will likely get "Sorry we don't take back open software" as a response) 

2) Custom Software: This is basically the same as packaged software EXCEPT the duration of the Warranty is for a negotiated period of time (usually 3-6 month, or a outlined in a long term support contract), Any defect after that is outside the Warranty even if it’s clearly a defect. So it’s really up to the purchaser to do his diligence in testing during the "Acceptance Phase"

**NOBODY COVERS THE COST OF DATA LOSS**

It would be insane to. I sell you Inventory-tracker 2.6 for 50$, a Glitch causes you to "Loose" 100k in inventory. Should I be libel for that 100k? If yes, no one would sell software, it’s not worth the risk. Again.. it’s up to the purchases to do his diligence to insure the software is working as *expected* (Note the word *Expected*.. I did not say *Designed*.)

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The customer has to backup his data. This is his protection against data loss.
Regarding data loss: I took a look at some online backup systems. Here is one example:

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> entire liability, and Your exclusive remedy, for any and all claims arising under or in connection with this Agreement or related to any item or service provided under or in connection with this Agreement, regardless of the form of the action (including negligence), whether in breach of warranty, contract, tort, strict liability or otherwise, shall be limited to a maximum amount equal to the license and maintenance fees paid within the last six (6) month period prior to such loss. You expressly recognize and acknowledge that such limitation of liability is an essential part of this Agreement and is an essential factor in establishing the price of the Licensed Products. You shall cause your insurers of data, if any, to waive any right of subrogation against...
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You have to limit what you will cover and what you will refund. Remember companies such as LL Bean and Lands End only refund the cost of the boots, and ignore the fact the hike wasn't fun in boots falling apart.