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Canadian judge rules the thumbs up emoji counts as a contract agreement
(www.engadget.com)
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this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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A lot of people don't understand that there is nothing magical about a written contract with a signature. If you agree to something you have a contract. It doesn't matter if it is written, spoken, gestured or anything else. Written contracts with signatures are often preferred because it is very clear that there was an agreement and what was agreed to. But just about any method of agreeing is just as binding.
Like you said, written contracts lack vagueness. The interaction leading to the Thumbs Up was pretty damn vague. Validates my refusal to ever use emojis.
Have you read the article? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/06/canada-judge-thumbs-up-emoji-sign-contract. I think that the thumbs up was actually pretty clear in this case. He had a history of accepting contracts which had already been discussed verbally with a short text like "Ok" or "Looks good". It seems very likely that "👍" meant the same thing.
Emoji doesn't have anything to do with it. The fact is that he was responding to a legal agreement informally. There is really no difference between "Looks good" and "👍". This is only a story because he tried to weasel out when the price shot up.
Yes. The fact that an emoji was ever an acceptable acknowledgement bothers me.
I will be sure to get off your lawn. 👍