In an article in the University of Chicago Law Review, Penn Law Professor Dave Hoffman challenges widely held notions about the purpose and function of digital fine print—like the iTunes Software License Agreement and social media privacy policies—by closely examining the work of companies that have decided to make their fine print into something consumers can actually understand. The conventional wisdom holds that while consumers may hurriedly click “Agree” on digital terms and conditions while on their way to using the products and websites, no one actually reads them. Why then do companies bother deploying them at all?
In “Relational Contracts of Adhesion,” Hoffman explains that the traditional answer has been that this digital fine print operates as an “option” for the firms using it: While it may not do much to police consumers’ behavior on the front end, businesses can use the fine print to enforce norms of conduct by punishing the most egregious consumer misconduct. However, Hoffman argues, the “option” theory of fine print is incomplete.
Several well-known sharing-economy digital firms, including Tumblr, Kickstarter, Etsy, Airbnb, and Bumble, have in recent years revised their fine print in ways designed to make it more easily understood and accessible for non-lawyers, and thus more likely to be read and—potentially—complied with. Interviewing lawyers at these innovative firms, Hoffman discovered what motivated them to reconceive what is typically boilerplate contractual language, and what, if anything, has resulted from the revisions.
Read more at Penn Law.
