Earlier this year, I appeared on a panel discussing e-commerce at the Furniture Today Leadership Conference. As the panel and participants observed, the Internet has changed our industry dramatically, across every aspect of our business models from manufacturing through points of sale, marketing, advertising, and beyond.
But lurking in this new world of e-commerce are legal tricks and traps affecting the relationship between you and your customers. That is because businesses like yours need to lay down the rules of the road when customers come shopping on your site or use your apps. These rules affect a number of aspects of this relationship. To name just a few: what you can do with your customers’ data; policies and representations regarding speed of shipping and responsibility for defects or problems; where a lawsuit or arbitration may be located in case of a dispute; and rights to any images or files a customer or app user may share with you.
When someone clicks an “I agree” button, do those rules become enforceable? That’s where things can get tricky. One recent case highlights pitfalls for businesses that do not present these rules of the road properly to users. The case involved Gogo in-flight Internet, and in that case, the court discussed four techniques businesses use to subject users to terms of service:
Scrollwrap: a user scrolls through an agreement and then clicks “I agree” at the bottom.
Browsewrap: a user assents to terms of service merely by using the site.
Clickwrap: a user must click “I agree,” but need not necessarily view the terms of service.
Sign-in-wrap: holds the user to terms of service by clicking “sign-in.” “Terms of service” and “privacy policy” may be hyperlinked to the full terms elsewhere.
In the Gogo Internet case, the site’s wording, design, and presentation were deemed not to alert the customer sufficiently of the terms of agreement and did not make it clear enough where to find these terms.
The key lesson for business owners is that on your website, every detail counts. These details include the size of the font linking to the full terms of service or privacy policy if you choose to put them on a separate page, and how much a user is on notice that these rules may be read on a page other than the one he or she is currently visiting.
What’s at stake? Unnecessary refunds, distracting disputes, and limits on what you can do with information. And much more. Terms of service matter. The e-commerce revolution in our industry is exciting, but it also requires making sure that you present these ground rules properly and clearly now and in the future.
What is important to you in the way customers or prospects use your website or apps? Comment below, or email me at jcohen@ctswlaw.com.
This blog is intended to provide basic and useful information but not legal advice. As legal advice must be tailored to the specific circumstances of each case, and laws are constantly changing, nothing provided in this blog should be used as a substitute for the advice of competent counsel. We recommend you consult a lawyer to ensure that the information provided, and your interpretation of it, is applicable to your particular situation.
Editors' Picks
Products from Total Home Market
