Peculiarities of legal language in civil law contracts concluded via the Internet

Volgograd State University, 100, Universitetskiy av., 400062, Volgograd, Russia

^* Corresponding author: kozlova@volsu.ru

Abstract

Informatization of the society leads to the fact that more and more often civil contracts are concluded between contractors who are far away from each other and they communicate only via the Internet. Peculiarities of legal language in contracts are studied. Moreover, contracts concluded by accepting public offers, exchanging messages, contracts concluded while purchasing goods and services in internet shops and using internet applications are studied. It is determined that the contracts concluded via the Internet do not have a unified text, signed by the sides, they contain links to other documents and sources, contain linguistic structures, excluding the possibility to agree on the contract’s terms. The contractor offering to conclude the contract usually includes terms profitable for him - on restraining responsibility, on applicable law, on jurisdiction of disputes. Such contracts always imply that the joining side will learn the agreement’s terms, though in most cases it does not happen, and the joining side can be deceived about the agreement’s content and the contractor’s identity.