New Study Examines Common Legal Agreements Consumers Engage with and Offers Guidance on Avoiding Risky Pitfalls
Contract Logix, a leading provider of data-driven contract management software, published its inaugural “The 20 Scariest Hidden Contract Terms You’ll Sign In a Lifetime” report, an examination of the most common legal agreements people engage with, common pitfalls, and guidance on how to avoid them. Research shows that 91% of people consent to legal terms and services conditions without ever reading them. The Contract Logix report looks at these terms, exploring both the scariest and strangest hidden terms that people agree to from their teen years through retirement.
“As a data-driven provider of contract management software, Contract Logix’s job is to help our customers mitigate the hidden risks in their contracts.” – Karen Meyer, CEO, Contract Logix
“As a data-driven provider of contract management software, Contract Logix’s job is to help our customers mitigate the hidden risks in their contracts,” said Karen Meyer, CEO, Contract Logix. “We’re a B2B company and we understand the risks in business agreements. But we’re people too, curious about the dangers lurking in the contracts we sign in our personal lives daily.”
Recent mainstream media coverage of this topic on NPR’s Planet Money and Netflix’s Black Mirror demonstrate that Contract Logix isn’t the only one wondering what clicking those checkboxes actually mean. In its inaugural “The 20 Scariest Hidden Contract Terms You’ll Sign in a Lifetime” report, the company has taken its data-driven expertise and applied it to consumer contracts.
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“The 20 Scariest Hidden Contract Terms You’ll Sign in a Lifetime ” report outlines key statistics about how consumers currently interact with contracts, and then highlights four key contracts people come across at each stage of life including teens, twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and retirement. Key findings include:
- 91% of all people—and 97% of young people—consent to legal terms and services conditions without reading them.
- More than a third of adults say they have never read a privacy policy before agreeing to it.
- Tech legal documents are 50% longer than the average car manufacturers’ legal documents.
- The teen years will likely be the first time consumers are asked to sign documents acknowledging consent, but these often are confusing social media privacy terms and conditions with language teenagers may not understand.
- The twenties are often a time of significant change with major financial and employment adult milestones and their corresponding contract requirements.
- In their thirties, consumers have more disposable income for travel and investing, but should also read the fine print on if, and when, they want to grow their families and how.
- Consumers in their forties may feel more secure and established, but are dealing with renting, buying, selling, or improving their living spaces and dealing with related contract requirements.
- In their fifties, consumers (if they are lucky) can begin to start thinking about what a post-work life looks like and bucket list items, as well as all the terms and conditions needed to satisfy planning for retirement.
“At Contract Logix, we’re all about minimizing the risk and complexity of managing legal agreements. We understand just how important it is for businesses AND consumers to fully understand and track the Ts & Cs they’re agreeing to, which is why we decided to pull together this sample of many of the terms and conditions you’ll be asked to agree to during your lifetime,” said David Parks, Vice President, Marketing, Contract Logix. “And while this list is not exhaustive, we tried to pull together the best (and worst) of what’s out there. We hope that this is the beginning of an ongoing conversation about the value of contract data and the risks involved in signing legal documents without fully understanding the terms.”
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