PactSafe, the leading high-velocity contract acceptance platform, released findings from its annual Clickwrap Litigation Trends study. This year, the report includes new statistics for 2019 and dives deeper into the different types of online agreements, the main types of evidence used to enforce online agreements, and what types of evidence lead to successful outcomes in court.
PactSafe released its first study of clickwrap litigation in 2019, noting a 626 percent increase in clickthrough litigation between 2002 and 2018. In 2019, data showed a 15 percent increase in clickwrap litigation-related cases from the year before. This year’s study also examines the win and loss factors of the different types of online agreements enforced in court: clickwrap, sign-in-wrap, and browsewrap. Of the three online agreements disputed in 2019, 60 percent were clickwrap agreements, 25 percent were sign-in-wrap agreements, and 13 percent were browsewrap agreements.
While exploring different types of evidence, such as declarations/affidavits, screenshots and back-end records of acceptance, PactSafe’s study found companies in 67 percent of cases last year produced declarations or affidavits that described the process by which users agreed to the company terms. In 69 percent of these cases, companies produced high-quality declarations or affidavits and successfully enforced their terms.
“Clickthrough litigation will only continue to rise and become more sophisticated, so companies need to maintain detailed audit trails to show acceptance,” said Brian Powers, PactSafe founder and CEO. “A third-party solution can significantly reduce the time, money, and energy spent on ensuring enforceability.”
Additional key findings from PactSafe’s Clickwrap Litigation Trends study include:
● In 2019, clickwrap agreements had an overall success rate of 80 percent, down from 97 percent in 2018.
● 20 percent of clickwrap cases involved travel-related companies and 16 percent involved ecommerce companies in 2019.
● Key court cases featured in the report: Facebook Inc. Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, Williams v. Eaze Solutions Inc., Holley v. Bitesquad, and the Independent Living Resource Center San Francisco v. Uber Technologies.
For more information on PactSafe or their Clickwrap Litigation Trends study, download the full report or visit www.pactsafe.com.
About PactSafe
PactSafe is an Indianapolis-based high-velocity contract acceptance platform that allows marketplaces to generate legally-binding clickwrap agreements and track millions of acceptance events without affecting conversion rate. PactSafe helps companies like Angie’s List (Home Advisor), BMC Software, and Upwork update online legal terms, track and gain acceptance of those terms, and identify areas of potential risk before they become an issue.
