Consumers and businesses routinely enter into binding contracts
by means of both paper agreements and online
"click-through" agreements. But what happens when you
face a "hybrid" contract? Can a binding contract be
formed merely with a link to another set of terms?
The answer is clear... it depends. Consider the American case
of Holdbrook Pediatric Dental, LLC, v. Pro Computer
Service, LLC (PCS). This decision considered the
enforceability of a set of terms which were "linked" from
a paper hard-copy version of the contract.
In Holdbrook Pediatric, PCS sent a contract to its
customer electronically. The customer printed out the paper
version, signed it in hard copy and sent it back. Near the
signature line, a hyperlink appeared pointing to a separate set of
Terms and Conditions in HTML code. Of course, on the paper copy
these terms could not be hyperlinked. It was simply a static line
typed out on the paper copy that appeared like this:
