"You click to accept terms of use for every app you download." "This same theory was later applied to clickwrap agreements, which is what we have everywhere now," adds Muir. The reason? Users had choices of alternative software. The inferior party has no choice but to take it, says Muir.īut the courts rejected the argument that software offered a contract of adhesion with these shrink-wrap agreements. That's because there's a principle that if one party has superior bargaining power over another, no contract between them can be fair because it is a contract of adhesion. Microsoft used a little sticker on the wrapper, which said, 'If you break this seal you agree to our licensing terms.'" "This logic came from the early days of computing when you got a box full of floppy disks wrapped in cellophane and downloaded the software manually onto your computer. "Terms of use have been interpreted to be very strong contracts allowed to be unusually restrictive," she told me. "I see it all over the place, from tickets to sports games to cereal boxes," she says. (Photo by Michael Gottschalk/Photothek via Getty Images) More fine-print examples - and how it got startedįine print has multiplied, according to Jane Muir, a Miami attorney whose practice focuses on commercial litigation, contracts, and general counsel. I'll share a few examples and then tell you how we can escape this mess. It helps to know how we arrived at this point. And over the long term, studies suggest deceptive advertising can hurt businesses - not to mention consumers. They buried important terms in pages of fine print that people could reach only through a tiny hyperlink, the FTC alleged.īut experts say the instances of fine-print deception are on the rise, despite these occasional enforcement actions. The real terms were buried in - you guessed it! - the fine print.Īnd in March, it charged a group of online marketers with deceptively luring consumers with “free” and “risk-free” trials for cooking gadgets, golf equipment, and access to related online subscription services. In December, the FTC cracked down on a Dallas car dealership for deceptively advertised loan terms in ads. You have to scroll back to last year to find the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) really going after a company for hidden restrictions.
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