Chicago Business Litigation Lawyer Blog
In today’s society, license agreements are everywhere. With the advent of Software as a Service (SaaS) and web-based services, click-wrap or clickthrough agreements—agreements where the licensee agrees to the terms of the license agreement by clicking a button or ticking a box—are commonplace. The software and online services industries depend on such agreements. Recently however, a federal district court judge out of the Northern District of California issued a potentially industry-shaking ruling invalidating amendments to such click-wrap agreements unless a user is required to manifest assent to such amendments through something more than mere continued use of the service.
The defendant in the suit is Dropbox and the plaintiff is a user of Dropbox’s online file storage service. The plaintiff, who filed the suit pro se, alleged that he suffered injury as a result of a 2012 data breach which the plaintiff alleged involved the compromise of his Dropbox account. In response to the complaint, Dropbox moved to compel arbitration arguing that its amended terms of service (TOS) required the claim to be resolved through binding arbitration instead of a lawsuit. Continue reading ›