Ninth Circuit Judge Blasts ‘Wrong’ Doctrine in Internet Cases

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held yesterday that a website’s display of an already checked box, next to a notation indicating that the user agrees to the company’s hyperlinked terms of service, failed to bind consumers because the company did not explicitly advise that clicking a button marked “[c]onnect now” would be a signal of assent, drawing a separate opinion criticizing the rule as an “erroneous doctrinal path.”