Motherboard – Reading the terms and conditions of online consumer contracts requires, on average, more than 14 years of education. Two law professors analyzed the sign-in terms and conditions of 500 popular US websites, including Google and Facebook, and found that more than 99 percent of them were “unreadable,” far exceeding the level most American adults read at, but are still enforced. According to a new paper published on SSRN (Social Science Research Network), the average readability level of the agreements reviewed by the researchers was comparable to articles in academic journals. “While consumers are legally expected or presumed to read their contracts, businesses are not required to write readable ones. This asymmetry—and its potential consequences—puzzled us,” wrote co-author Samuel Becher, a law professor at Victoria University of Wellington, in an email to Motherboard. We’ve all been there, signing up for a new digital service such as Amazon or Uber and being asked to tick the box saying that we agree to the terms of service, or ToS. These agreements typically include clauses on intellectual property, prohibited use, and termination, among many others. Most of us accept the terms without bothering to read the fine print. But with these relatively new types of contracts, known as sign-in-wrap agreements, there is a danger in clicking “agree” without reading or understanding them—they’re regularly enforced…”