Thomas Maronick
Professor, Towson University, USA.Do Consumers Read Terms of Service Agreements
When Installing Software: An Empirical Analysis
An important issue in all transactions and particularly in on-line
transactions are the details of the agreement between the parties.
Consumers often agree to terms and conditions in contracts without
ever reading them, much less understanding the legalese in which the
contract is written. This situation is particularly acute in on-line
transactions where the terms of the agreement, usually called Terms of
Service (TOS) or Terms of Use agreements, often contain hundreds of
lines of text in a scrollable window. Consumer routinely skip the TOS
by simply clicking on an “Agree” or “End” link, thereby binding
themselves to the detailed terms and conditions in the TOS agreement
and freeing the seller of almost all liability.
The questions therefore are: 1) How much of TOS agreements do
consumers read when installing software? 2) Is there any relationship
between the time spent reading the TOS agreement and the perceived
risk of computer or software damage from the downloaded content?
and 3) What factors affect a consumer’s decision not to read a TOS
agreement when installing software on their computer? This paper
answers these questions with a sample of 151 consumers who had
downloaded software from the internet. Respondents were surveyed
using an on-line survey platform. Survey questions included:
perceived risk of installing the software on their computer, perception
of who would be responsible for damage to their computer or software,
estimates of how much of the TOS agreements they say they read in
general and did read during a recent software installation, and reasons
for not reading any or more of the TOS agreements. The results show
that most consumers downloading software, including those who
perceive the risk of damage to their computer as high, do not read the
TOS even though many claim to have read over half of it. The primary
reason for not reading is the length of the contract, not the font size or
legal language.