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Enforceable Browse Wrap Contracts

By Karen Berger and Jonathan Bick

With the growth in its popularity, and the evolving sophistication of technology to offer and execute it, e-commerce is increasingly automated. In the past, Internet sites used terms of use agreements that include an Internet mechanism to affirm consent to be bound by the agreement (“click-wrap”).

But more often than ever, browse-wrap agreements are replacing click-wrap agreements. Enforceable browse-wrap agreements have two factors in common:

  1. They include sufficient notice of the terms; and
  2. The actions of the Internet user clearly manifest the user's acceptance of the terms.

Keep in mind that sufficient notice is not a bright-line test for browse-wrap agreement enforceability; rather, it has been used on a case-by-case basis. For instance, in Specht v. Netscape Communications Corp., 306 F.3d 17 (2d Cir. 2002), the dispute was whether users of Netscape's software, who downloaded it from Netscape's Web site, were bound by an agreement to arbitrate disputes with Netscape in instances in which Netscape had posted the terms of its offer of the software (including the obligation to arbitrate disputes) on the Web site from which users downloaded the software.

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