Over 80% of people don’t bother reading the terms and conditions they are presented with on the Internet. This is no surprise when apparently Apple’s terms and conditions are longer than Hamlet. In a study, several customers unwittingly signed up to so called “Herod” clauses, promising to sacrifice their eldest son as a condition of the contract! I have to say that I don’t actually read the terms and conditions and just scroll to the bottom and click “accept.”
Businesses are being urged to simplify their terms and conditions, but they are about to get more complicated as from January 2016 (yes, just 4 weeks’ time!) all businesses trading online will need to add a link to the EU ODR portal to their websites. It will be interesting to see how many actually comply with this requirement.