Typical Online Agreements and Associated Legal Challenges Confronting Consumers: A South African Perspective

The emergence of the internet coupled with the rapid development in digital technology has revolutionalised the way things are done, including the economic activities of businesses and consumers. The ease and convenience offered via the electronic commerce platform has become a major motivation for its increasing use rather than visits to physical stores or places of business. Amidst the comfort, wider array of products and time saving benefits available to consumers in the digital marketplace, consumers are confronted with complex problems and challenges that offline consumers who interact with sellers’ face to face do not experience. Although there is subsisting legislation that regulates online transactions and agreement in South Africa, this seems to be inadequate to address the adverse situations consumers are exposed to while contracting electronically. This paper discusses the common forms of online contracts and the concomitant legal challenges affecting consumers while concluding contracts online in the South African context. Questions such as ‘which country’s law will apply on online contracts in cross-border contracts’ are some of the pertinent issues without clear cut answers. Divided into four parts, the first part deals with the legal principles regulating online contracts, part two tackles the validity of online contracts, part three deals with the legal challenges consumers face in online contracts in South Africa and the last part is the conclusion. The authors hope that this contribution would help stimulate the debate about online contracts with hopes of bringing the much-needed contractual certainty in this area of the law.