Internet consumer contract law favours the cyber-merchants above individual users [Archive.org URL]

“Consumer contracts in cyberspace often include terms that paper contracts would blush at. They may deprive users of intellectual property rights, exclude consumer warranties and severely limit liability . . . Merchants have all the power and consumers have little. Agreements can be changed without warning, and even without notification. Customers are supposed to keep checking back, on the off-chance that something has changed. Consumers are often deemed to have accepted the terms of such agreements, merely because they used the website; they are not required to have read the agreement to be bound by it. Sometimes consumers may not even know the agreement exists. Sometimes the terms and conditions are accessible only from a fine-print link at the bottom of the home page: their existence is scarcely advertised. And most agreements forbid alteration: there is no negotiation. This is one of those areas where our ethics have lagged behind our technology. From the point of view of contract law, cyberspace is still close to the state of nature.”

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