united-states contract-law consent adhesion-contracts
Avoiding agreeing to, or amending, digital contracts
<p>Say you are presented with a digital checkbox or a pin pad, a contract with some terms you do not genuinely consent to, and a business process of the counterparty that cannot proceed unless the box is ticked or something is scribbled on the pad.</p>
<p>Is it possible to scribble on the pin pad or check the online checkbox or do whatever so that the other party's business flow can proceed, but without allowing that action to form a contract? Or at least that particular contract?</p>
<p>If I yell &quot;I do not agree to this contract!&quot; or &quot;I agree only on this condition!&quot; while pressing the button, and the employees of the business see this, and the business opts to serve me anyway, have I avoided forming a contract or successfully amended the contract?</p>
<p>If the business performs and I perform, and we have both stated our conflicting terms, whose terms win and why?</p>

<h2>You cannot</h2>
<p>In a conflict between written and oral terms of a contract, the written terms prevail. In any event, by you utterance you have not accepted the contract; you have made a counter-offer which the other party has not accepted and have then gone on to accept their original offer.</p>
<p>You would need the written agreement of the other party that they accept your terms and that they understand that clicking the “I accept” is not an acceptance of their terms but merely a means of completing the technical procedure.</p>
