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In the United States, the The Electronic Signatures in Global National Commerce Act recently took effect. According to this Act, activities in a gray area, like on-line licensing agreements, can now become valid, as clicking "ACCEPT" is construed as an agreement.
My idea is to create a proxy
server that maintains the locations of these agreements on the web, or detects them. Typically, these agreements consist of a form with only two buttons with text like "I AGREE" and "I DO NOT AGREE", and possibly a text field containing the agreement. When the proxy server notices a page like this, it generates a POST indicating agreement, and returns the result of that page to the browser.
Please log in.
If you're not logged in,
you can see what this page
looks like, but you will
not be able to add anything.
Destination URL.
E.g., https://www.coffee.com/
Description (displayed with the short name and URL.)
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... the idea being that since you didn't actually click the button, you aren't actually bound by the agreement? (One could argue that by installing such a proxy you implicitly agreed to be bound by *any* such agreement... but that would be a fairly weak argument.) |
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I find that in an amusingly large number of cases, the text field in question remains editable. I generally delete the text, replace it with a contract I like better, and happily click "ACCEPT". |
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