Don’t click too quickly
Reinhardt Buys, from media and IT law firm Buys Inc., noted at the Online Media Summit in Johannesburg, that what you can do with “pen and ink you can do online”.
According to Buys, a click online is as good as a signature which means that users should be more careful about what they agree to.
On the other side of the coin, the onus is on website owners and content providers to supply terms and conditions to protect themselves from litigation.
But before the terms and conditions can be considered legally valid the website or software owner must be able to prove that the user could not enter the website or download the material without first agreeing to the terms and conditions and/or having the opportunity to view the terms and conditions.
Visibility is the key ingredient here according to Buys but terms and conditions must also be savable and printable in order to be legally robust.
Buys, recommends that terms and conditions be placed at the top of a website as they must be visible before the user starts using the website.
So for website owners who have their terms and conditions below, the legal tip for the day is to move it to a more visible location. That’s if you want the law on your side.
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