The Validity of Online Contracts
It is basic, black letter, first week in law school law
that in order to have a valid contract, there must be at least 3
essential elements. These elements are an offer, acceptance and
consideration.
The concept of “offer” is simple: a web site offers goods,
services, software, membership in the site etc. etc. and that offer is
contained, for the sake of this article, in some sort of agreement
posted on the site.
“Consideration” for the sake of extreme simplicity and
because it is not germane to this article, involves something of value
being exchanged between the parties. Let’s just leave it at that.
This article deals with how, in the context of the
Internet, the element of “acceptance” can be satisfied so that, assuming
the validity of a given offer and a valid consideration, a binding
obligation can be created.
