Outline of Online Contracts - Essay Example

Nowadays, more and more people turn to online agreements, sometimes even preferring them over traditional written ones. Online contracts are mostly governed by the same legal traditional principles as written contracts.

This topic has been chosen due to the growing popularity of online agreements among simple users and other interested persons. The term paper is focused on revealing the essence of online agreements. The objective of this paper is to reveal and critically analyze the concept of online contracts’ conclusion and their advantages or disadvantages in comparison to traditional written contracts.

The term paper will focus on analyzing the legal imperative steps that must be taken for an online contract to be concluded. The concepts of offer, acceptance and consideration will be analyzed under the Canadian legal provisions, as well as the international acts regulating this domain. These steps will be critically analyzed by the author to explain the difficulties that might occur in their performance and to recommend, if possible, better solutions to overcoming these difficulties in the online world.

The author will also focus on analyzing the nature of online advertisements, explaining and demonstrating it through examples of legal stipulations and law cases.

The difference between an invitation to treat and an offer will be also explained, although it is sometimes difficult to establish. However, the paper will try to analyze it as thoroughly as possible so that most of the differentiating aspects are cleared up.

The author will describe the legal characteristics that an offer must have and will also analyze them. The rules of acceptance will be explained and analyzed, focusing on the concept of cross-offer and the legal manners of acceptance, too.

Some of the most important forms of online agreements will be analyzed, including the click-wrap and click-through contracts, which nowadays are very popular.

The last step of the conclusion of the online agreements – consideration - will also be analyzed.

The paper will also focus on the moment of conclusion of online contracts, which is determined by the moment of acceptance. According to article 23 of UNCITRAL, “a contract is concluded when an acceptance of an offer becomes effective”. The practical application of this stipulation will be also analyzed.

In Canada, the conclusion of online contracts falls under the jurisdiction of the following legislative acts: United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law on Electronic Commerce ("U.N. Model Law"); Uniform Electronic Commerce Act (UECA); Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act; and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. The author will give a brief description of each of these acts, pointing out their strong and weak points.