browsewrap

adj.

Describes a legal agreement that the user accepts indirectly by browsing an online site. Also: browse-wrap, browse wrap.

Example Citations:

Even Cory Doctorow, the digital rights activist and online champion of all things weird, includes a lengthy legal warning at the bottom of his emails. He uses the space to "require" recipients to free him from their companies' "non-negotiated agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies."

—Ryan Singel, " Burning Question: Why Do Emails Contain Legal Warnings?: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/12/pr_burningquestion_legalwarning/," Wired, December 27, 2010

Third, even if licensing e-books is deemed acceptable, Amazon's conditions of use may not be enforceable. Contracts require mutual assent. Agreements posted in the background on the Web — purporting to bind users without any action on their part — are known as "browsewrap," and their legality as contracts is unclear.

—Michael Seringhaus, " Kindle: How To Buy A Book But Not Own It: http://www.law.yale.edu/news/10288.htm," Hartford Courant, August 5, 2009

Earliest Citation:

Another type of licensing has been named "browse-wrap licensing."

—William H. Henning, George I. Wallach, The Law of Sales Under the Uniform Commercial Code: http://books.google.com/books?id=VkY9AQAAIAAJ&q=%22browse-wrap%22, Warren Gorham & Lamont, June 1, 1992

Notes:

The "wrap" part of browsewrap comes from the adjective shrinkwrap, which refers to a license or agreement inside a package (particularly software) that can only be read and accepted by first opening the package (which begins, of course, by removing the shrinkwrap that encloses the box).

Related Words:

click-wrap

copyfighter

copyleft

paracopyright

Categories:

Internet

Law and Order