Games Of Terms

Recognizing peoples' reluctance to read a long and complex legal document and their limited attention, this Article suggests a novel and interdisciplinary approach to tackle the no-reading problem by utilizing insights from the field of gamification. Online platforms rely extensively on long perplexing legal documents to control and govern users' online activities (e.g., Terms of Use). However, most users will not even glance at these documents. Instead, they will click "I Agree" and move on with their lives. Thus, instead of promoting informed users, these documents perpetuate the no-reading problem. But there are many clauses in these click-to-agree contracts that would alarm people if they knew about them. Building on the vast literature pertaining to games and gamification we demonstrate how gamifying legal documents in an online environment could apply the advantages of gamification to advance other means--chiefly, meaningful information disclosure. This innovative approach implements insights from the study of games and gamification to change the system of click-to-agree contracts for a system that better informs users. Further, we emphasize the advantages of gamification to major online platforms, as it could reduce the resources they would need to fight the proliferation of unwanted content.