Think back to the last app that you had installed on your phone. Before reaching the home screen, there is this scroll filled with information that either you read or skipped. It took you less than 2 seconds to agree to a contract with a law news website. No one warned you when downloading your favorite game or your most ordered food delivery application that your agreement was as binding as contracts signed between two parties face to face. Such was the position of Indian Courts in the last decade, and most especially your age! This article is not about persuading you to download apps, and it certainly is not about convincing you to read every Terms and Conditions page, which by the way, not even the author does. Instead, this article is about the knowledge that every consumer should possess concerning three or four points of interest in a scroll, knowing what protection the law can give in case something goes wrong after clicking “I Agree”, and lastly, learning what precise practical steps to take when any of the aforementioned points are not met. Awareness without action creates fear. Thus, the purpose of this article is to leave you both aware and well-positioned to take action if the need ever arises.
A Click is Not a Signature?
An argument on the nature of a click agreement has been made in Trimex International FZE v. Vedanta Aluminium, 2010. The Supreme Court acknowledged a contract between two business entities that had communicated through emails without any physical signatures on the documents. The Court recognized such an agreement between businesses as a valid contract because of the intention of the parties to be bound by the terms and conditions of the contract. Additionally, as observed in Sanjay Kumar Jain v Yahoo, the Delhi High Court was of the opinion that a clickwrap agreement binds the user to the terms and conditions laid down by the company. In response to the plaintiff’s argument that he was not aware of the Terms and Conditions of the service, the Court remarked that his mere act of accessing the Terms and Conditions was sufficient to be regarded as consent. Furthermore, the Information Technology Act, 2000 recognizes an agreement entered into electronically as a valid contract and is enforced accordingly. Therefore a user who agrees to the Terms and Conditions laid down by a company by clicking on a button stating “I Agree”, would be bound by the terms and conditions as if he had signed physically.
In essence, clicking on a button to agree to the terms and conditions can sometimes be more significant than an individual clicking on a “buy now” button when shopping. As per Section 10A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, a contract made by electronic means is not invalid merely because it is executed, communicated, or recorded by means of electronic communication. Such a contract must satisfy the requirements of a valid contract under the Indian Contract Act, 1872, and the acceptance should be in conformity with the modes prescribed under the Information Technology Act, 2000. That is why online agreements and contracts form an integral part of e-commerce today. When an individual logs onto an application, a website, or opens an account after accepting the terms and conditions, the law recognizes the click-wrap as valid consent. Furthermore, Courts draw a distinction between a contract made via email, which must satisfy the requirements of a valid contract, and a contract, which satisfies the requirements of a valid contract under the Information Technology Act.
Thus, the primary requirement for such a contract is that the Terms and Conditions must be expressly brought to the notice of the individual, and his acceptance is in conformity with the requirements under the Information Technology Act, 2000. It is also relevant to note that such contracts tend to be heavily skewed in favor of the party that drafted them, which is most often the company offering the service. Therefore, by virtue of agreeing to the Terms and Conditions, the user could also be bound by the arbitration clause or jurisdiction clause contained in the contract. By law, a click to accept is a click to be bound. In conclusion, electronic contracts can be valid and enforceable as valid contracts if the requirements under the Indian Contract Act, 1872 are met.
One must also note the subtle difference between the clickwrap and browsewrap agreement. A clickwrap agreement is the more common of the two and works on the standard procedure where the user clicks on “I Agree” to the Terms and Conditions. On the other hand, a browsewrap agreement does not require the user to expressly accept the Terms and Conditions. A browsewrap agreement operates in such a manner that the Terms and Conditions are contained within a separate part of the website, such that the user must browse through them first. However, Courts have held that a browsewrap agreement is valid as long as the Terms and Conditions are brought to the notice of the user. Therefore, a browsewrap agreement is a valid contract if the Terms and Conditions are easily accessible and the user has had the opportunity to read them. In both types of online contracts, the user must expressly accept the Terms and Conditions as required by Section 10A, and such acceptance must be in conformity with the modes prescribed by the Information Technology Act, 2000.
Now, having read all this information about contract law in the digital age, what steps can a consumer take to protect himself from unconscionable Terms and Conditions? First and foremost, consumers must know their rights and be informed of the exact nature of a contract. If any provision of such contracts is ambiguous, he should read up on a reputable law website, or even better, consult with a qualified attorney on the fine print of the contract. Secondly, if the consumer suspects that he has clicked on a contract that is not in conformity with the principles of a valid contract, he must gather supporting information and file a complaint with the appropriate authority, such as the consumer welfare trust or file a writ petition with the High Court or Supreme Court, whichever is applicable. In essence, awareness and legal action are the best ways to prevent exploitation by businesses using digital contracts.
A browsewrap agreement can be described as an agreement that is not click-wrap but is rather found in the corner or bottom of a website, indicating that by visiting the website, the terms of use have been accepted, and therefore, users should read them. Moreover, Indian courts have been skeptical in case of browsewrap agreements since there is no particular moment when a person agrees to the terms and conditions. However, understanding the difference between browsewrap and click-wrap already gives some valuable insight, for example, a website with terms and conditions in small letters at the bottom of the page has worse chances of prevailing in court in case of a dispute than a website that requires a person to click “I Agree”.
What Are You Actually Signing? Three Clauses Worth Your Ten Seconds
Nobody has time to read a forty page terms of service document written by a law firm for a food delivery application, so the responsible thing to do is not read it at all, but rather know which three clauses to look for with the help of the find function on your phone or laptop before clicking accept on something serious like a bank application, an investment platform, a landlord application, and anything else that involves both your money or your data on a large scale. The first clause to look for is jurisdiction, sometimes called the governing law or dispute resolution, a hint to which you may also find under the governing law, which will tell you which city’s court you would have to go to in order to sue them if something goes wrong, the second is arbitration, which means that they want to take away your right to a normal court process entirely and replace it with a more expensive one, and the third is a class action waiver, sometimes under the same tab as arbitration, which will tell you if you can sue them as part of a class action lawsuit, which is important to know if you think a data breach or billing error that affected thousands of people is worth spending your time and the company’s time on.
Searching a document for those three words would take less time than the video you watched before you went to the article that recommended a food delivery application to you, and it would give you more useful information than the other thirty-seven pages put together. If the food delivery app you used this week happens to have one of those clauses in its fine print, here is what you need to know to take it back in the next dispute that comes your way, as most of its power is negated by the same consumer protection law that has been keeping your other everyday applications from crossing the border into your personal life in the first place. The Consumer Protection Act, 2019, specifically Section 34, says that a complaint can be made to the consumer commission in whichever city the consumer is known to personally reside or work, rather than the company’s city of residence that many terms of service agreements mistakenly claim. Not only that, but several consumer commissions have ruled that this right cannot be overturned by a jurisdiction agreement as stated in a company’s terms of service.
In other words, not as simply as the first paragraph, but in full detail, the clause’s influence is significantly diminished in the face of a consumer law that was built specifically around protecting citizens like you, me, and the guy who drives for the food delivery company in question.
The Cookie You Never Asked to Bake
If terms and conditions are the fine print no one reads, cookies are the digital equivalent of peeping Tom. A cookie is a tiny bit of code that is downloaded onto your device while you are visiting a website. As a standalone entity, a cookie is actually pretty innocuous, typically serving either purely functional purposes such as remembering that you are logged in or recalling what items you had in your cart before you decide to abandon purchasing, or merely personalising your preferences on a given domain, such as the language you wish to view a page in. These are referred to collectively as Essential or Functional Cookies and are genuinely necessary for a lot of websites to operate.
However, the moment you factor in the other category of Tracking or Third Party Cookies, the situation changes fundamentally. The name itself is a pretty good hint as to their function; they track you, across the web, building psychological profiles which are then monetised or otherwise exploited to target you with increasingly intrusive and personalised advertisements. This is why you find yourself seeing ads for a pair of shoes you looked at ten minutes ago on a website you haven’t visited in a month, or why a dating app recommends you a potential match based on the most recent social media post you made regarding your relationship status. None of this would be possible without cookies doing their dirty work, and more importantly, you have almost certainly consented to them doing so in the past because the button to accept all cookies is usually far more prominently displayed than the comparatively minuscule option to manage your preferences.
This is where the solution lies, and it is perhaps more comprehensive than many people are aware of; the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, India’s first ever data protection law, and the accompanying Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025, which came into force in November this year, with the formation of the Data Protection Board of India also taking place in 2025, and its enforcement rolling out across 2027, require organisations collecting any personal data, including third party cookies, to inform the data principal, or you, of the same, and obtain your consent in a free, specific, informed and unambiguous manner.
In other words, you have rights under this statute which are codified directly into law. As a Data Principal, you have the right to access a summary of the personal data being processed about you, and the right to correct, update or rectify any of it. You also have the right to erase your personal data once it is no longer necessary, and to withdraw consent at any time, as easily as you gave it in the first place. The Act also provides for Consent Managers, or entities that can be designated by the Data Protection Board to act as aggregators for all the consents you have provided, which means instead of having to individually revoke permissions in each application that has been tracking your data, you can use a single, consolidated source of permission management.
However, you need not always wait for the aforementioned laws to fully enforce themselves before taking any action. There are three pretty simple steps, accessible on any device you use regularly, that can help you manage your privacy significantly better.
Firstly, always click the ‘Manage Preferences’ or ‘Customise’ option on any cookie banner that pops up, as opposed to the much more prominently displayed ‘Accept All’ option, and configure your cookie settings so that only Essential or Functional Cookies are enabled, and all other tracking or third party cookies are disabled wherever possible.
Secondly, use the privacy settings in your browser, typically accessible under the relevant privacy or cookie menu, to block third party cookies entirely or clear them at regular intervals. This will significantly reduce the amount of tracking that can happen on you by third parties.
Finally, when presented with the option, which is becoming significantly more common, to access or download the personal data an organisation holds about you, usually somewhere in the privacy or account settings of an application or service, take it up occasionally. It is always a sobering experience to actually see what kind of information someone else is privy to about you.
What Protects You Now?
India’s judiciary has declared that exploiting the position in which one party possesses absolute control over the terms of an agreement while the other has limited or no bargaining power is void and unenforceable.
In LIC of India v. Consumer Education and Research Centre, the Supreme Court held that any term in a standard form contract that disproportionately favours the proposer may be declared void by courts. Standard form contracts are typically contracts where one party prepares the terms of the agreement and the other simply accepts them on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. The same is comparable to a consumer agreeing to the terms and conditions of any app as a prerequisite to use. In essence, the consumer is incapable of bargaining, negotiating or modifying any terms as they are presented by the app developer for outright approval
Such terms are governed by a wider, older law as well. Specifically, Section 23 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 has enabled courts to refuse to enforce an agreement or any part of it if its object or consideration is illegal or against public policy. A contract term that removes or significantly prejudices a consumer’s legal rights as opposed to merely regulating or restricting their remedies is likely to be challenged as being against public policy.
Additionally, the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 makes certain terms of an agreement which cause “significant change in the rights and obligations of a consumer” as unfair terms, including imposing unreasonable charges, enabling unilateral termination of the agreement, and requiring deposit of disproportionate security deposits among others. A consumer who is a party to such an agreement may seek remedy from the Consumer Commissions as prescribed by the Act.
However, it must be noted that none of this automatically invalidates any unreasonable terms of an agreement. Even while a court is likely to side with a consumer who is unable to exercise his or her rights under the law due to the terms imposed by the other party, it must also consider the assumption that a consumer has agreed to the terms of an agreement, standard form or otherwise. This is why while both public policy and the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 may provide grounds for challenging unfair, unreasonable or unconscionable terms, it is the consumer who would have to demonstrate that such a term or entire agreement is indeed unreasonable and against public policy.
Turning Awareness Into Action: What You Can Actually Do
Knowing the law is one thing, but it becomes truly valuable to you as a consumer when you know the door to walk through when a situation goes bad. Here is what that door looks like.
First, keep a rudimentary record the moment there’s an issue, not after the fact. That means screenshots of the terms as you agreed to them if the application allows, copies of receipts and order confirmations, and any communication you’ve had with the customer support team. Consumer commissions and the data protection board have far more sympathy for documented evidence than a vague recollection of what was agreed to, and a moment’s documentation can be worth far more than a month’s.
Next, you need to know exactly where to take your problem, because most people don’t. For generic complaints about an application, e-commerce website, or service provider, the e-Daakhil portal, edaakhil.nic.in, is your one-stop solution for filing complaints with India’s consumer commissions from the comfort of your home, without needing to consult a lawyer or waste time at a physical office. You can choose which commission you’re filing with (based on the value of the goods or services in question) and where you’re filing, because as explained above, your location almost certainly has more bearing on the dispute’s jurisdiction than the company’s choice of forum. If you’re filing a complaint about a consumer’s personal data being processed improperly, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, handles those uniquely with a complaint channel to the company’s designated grievance officer as well as the Data Protection Board of India, depending on the circumstance. Knowing where to file can sometimes be the difference between a drawn-out legal battle and a simple phone call. In particular, reading up on the grievance officer’s contact information, which is usually buried in the same terms and conditions the user never reads, is often the quickest way to resolve any given dispute, as they are often charged directly with handling consumer issues and can sometimes fix things without going through any further procedures.
Before doing any of the above, you may wish to send a simple email or letter via regular post to the company’s grievance officer or customer care line, explaining the dispute in simple terms and asking them to resolve it. This achieves two things sometimes the complaint is resolved outright, if the customer care team has enough power to do so, and if not, you now have a piece of paper (or digital equivalent) proving that you’ve attempted to communicate with the company to their grievance officer, which is often required before the commission will even entertain your request.
Then, you actually have to object to the offending language in the terms, because surprise surprise, there often isn’t one. As explained in the linked article, clauses that attempt to deprive the consumer of their right to choose whatever jurisdiction hears their dispute, including the consumer forums and the courts of law, are increasingly being struck down by the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission and the courts in general. A ‘forum selection’ or ‘jurisdiction’ clause isn’t some inviolate truth, it’s simply a point of contention that companies tend to have more leverage on than others, but with the right information, you can oppose it just the same. The same goes for clauses seeking to prevent class action lawsuits, which exist to make it harder for consumers who have suffered similarly to band together, and are often being opposed with equal force now, as judges and commissions grow more familiar with the concept.
Finally, the whole point of this exercise should be to encourage you to skim, rather than read, the terms and conditions when you’re presented with them somewhere, because most people will only know the fine print of a contract by the time it’s too late. A generation that can agree to dozens of contracts before breakfast should be able to read the three lines of fine print describing a forum selection clause and the arbitration process if they can find it, and it’s my hope that this knowledge encourages them to do so.
Why This Is Relevant to You
We are the generation that agrees to more contracts before breakfast than our parents did in their entire lives. And as you read this, half of them didn’t read a single word of the fine print. It is normal for us to go and download an app, press an update button, or agree to a new set of terms and conditions. This culture will not change, nor should it. What needs to change is our level of awareness as our thumb hovers over that trust button.
Think about your average morning and how many times you have agreed to a contract. Unlock your phone and it asks you to accept a new privacy policy from your bank before you can check your balance. Your breakfast app asks you to confirm its new privacy policy as you order your coffee. You open a news website, and a cookie banner blocks your view of the article until you click to accept cookies. By the time you’ve finished your first cup of tea, you’ve agreed to more binding legal documents than most people of our parents’ generation did in an entire year of paperwork. This culture is not going to change. But the person who knows to look for arbitration clauses before signing up for an investment account, who opens the cookie banner and reads the options, and who bookmarks edaakhil.nic.in on the off chance they might one day need it, is in a much better position than their ill-informed counterpart, having spent the same number of ten-second interactions with each.
The law is still working out where to come down on this particular issue. But here is what we do know: your click does bind you in the same way as if you’d signed a contract. And you actually have a lot of power to make sure that click is informed rather than reckless.
