Blind consent? A social psychological investigation of non-readership of click-through agreements.

Abstract

Across two studies we aimed to measure empirically the extent of non-readership of clickthrough agreements (CTAs), identify the dominant social representations that exist about CTAs, and experimentally manipulate these representations in order to decrease automatic non-reading behavior and enhance contract efficiency. In our initial questionnaire study (Study 1), as predicted, the vast majority of participants reported not reading CTAs and the most prevalent social representations of CTAs contributing to non-readership included: they are too long and time-consuming, they are all the same, they give one no choice but to agree, they are not important, the companies are reputable, and they are irrelevant. Manipulating these representations on a simulated music web site (Study 2) revealed an increase in readership.Additionally, CTA comprehension and CTA rejection rates were both increased significantly by manipulating the length representation. These results demonstrate support for the influence of social representations on CTA readership, provide evidence against the common "limited cognition" perspective on non-readership, and suggest that presenting CTAs in a short, readable format can increase CTA readership and comprehension as well as shopping of CTA terms. Word count: 179Blind Consent? A Social Psychological Investigation of Non-Readership of Click-Through AgreementsEvery day, individuals using the Internet are confronted with a choice: to accept or not accept the terms of click-through agreements ("CTAs"). Used by on-line vendors to set forth the legal relationship between a vendor and its consumers (Kunz, Del Duca, Thayer, & Debrow, 2001), CTAs are ubiquitous in the on-line world. Requiring but a simple click of "I agree" to be formed, CTAs are commonly used to establish the terms of use of a website, the terms upon which a consumer may download and use a software program, or the terms upon which a consumer may shop on-line. Additionally, CTAs often include other "boilerplate terms" such as the right of a vendor to collect and disseminate a consumer's personal information and restrictions on the manner in which a consumer may bring future legal grievances against a vendor (Marotta-Wurgler, 2007). According to anecdotal evidence and limited survey research (Hillman, 2006a;Becher and Unger-Aviram, 2008), individuals overwhelmingly make the choice to accept-but not read-CTAs, thereby blindly consenting to their terms.Since the advent of the CTA, consumers have made a number of legal challenges against the enforceability of these contracts on the basis that they never read-let alone agreed-to their terms. The vast majority of these challenges have been unsuccessful (Lemley, 2006). While courts acknowledge that consumers do not read CTAs, they find the agreements validly formed contracts given that legal doctrine requires merely that consumers "assent" to the formation of a contract. Consequently, whether or not a consumer actually reads the contract is largely irrelevant. So long as a consumer manifests...

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