'Click To Agree' Terms of Services And Other Digital Agreements

Question

I've seen countless TOS/EULA/Legal agreements that basically say, 'Click here to Agree'.

What legal implication (if any) is there if I circumvent the action of clicking on that link/checkbox/button?

As a teenager, I'd always use keyboard shortcuts to continue the installer/or enter the website. I figured that, since I didn't 'click' with a mouse, I didn't agree. Sure, I pressed tab, tab, enter, but that is not a click. At least, that's what I'd tell myself.

I'm older now, and I can come up with far more elaborate ways to advance the installer without actually clicking. I can use Win32API calls to simulate a click, or I can use Javascript to send plain text up to the server that will let it continue, or use a debugger to just completely jump over the code that checks for my agreement.

From a legal perspective - does any of that matter? If the screen says, 'Click to continue' and I drop my cat on the keyboard 50 times until the screen advances, have I avoided the agreement? Or am I just a crazy guy throwing my cat around the office?

Answer 1

It's not a duplicate question, but I give a bunch of case law regarding clickwrap agreements here: https://law.stackexchange.com/a/9345/3851

Roughly, in the US, the test has been something like: "would a reasonably prudent offeree have known of the existence of license terms". If you proceed, when a reasonably prudent person would know that doing so indicated agreement with some terms, you will be deemed to have agreed to them. Whether you literally clicked doesn't matter.