internet terms-of-service legal-terms signature website
How can clicking on &quot;I agree with ...&quot; have any legal weight?
<p>Many times you have to agree with some conditions or terms on website by checking the "I agree" checkbox or clicking some button. </p>

<p>Or this - we are working on an agreement email for our client - our client sends email to their client with some kind of "I agree ..." checkbox to give our client approval to contact them and work with their credentials.</p>

<p>Both of these "approvals" can be faked very easily. When user clicks on confirmation <code>url</code> or checks some <code>checkbox</code>, it is just a <code>request</code> sent to our server and we then do something with the request. I can very easily just change directly the value in our database which can't be decided (in terms of law) whether did that user or a database programmer. </p>

<p>If you can't prove who "approved" that, how could it have any legal weight and everybody use it?</p>

<p>The fact that it is possible to engage in fraud, doesn't mean that it is impossible to prove something. Usually, in a civil action, testimony that a business record says something and that it was not falsified is sufficient to meet a preponderance of the evidence standard (i.e. to establish to the satisfaction of a judge or jury that it is more likely that something is true than it is that it isn't true). </p>

<p>It is easy to forge checks too (and hard to prove that a signature is fake), but that doesn't mean that you can't prove payment by check or that negotiable instruments are useless.</p>
