Law Commons^™

Website Design As Contract, Woodrow Hartzog

Faculty Scholarship

Few website users actually read or rely upon terms of use or privacy policies. Yet users regularly take advantage of and rely upon website design features like privacy settings. To reconcile the disparity between boilerplate legalese and website design, this article develops a theory of website design as contract. The ability to choose privacy settings, un-tag photos, and delete information is part of the negotiation between websites and users regarding their privacy. Yet courts invariably recognize only the boilerplate terms when analyzing online agreements. In this article, I propose that if significant website features are incorporated into the terms of …