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The Internet

Legal Verification of Web Pages? 15

Posted by Cliff from the debutizing-the-google-cache dept.
JavaDuke asks: "I live in Australia and recently purchased a product via the phone based on information that I read over the Internet. Part of that information was a guarantee, '...can be returned as part of our unconditional money back guarantee.' I tried to return the product but was told that I was (just) outside of their '90 day money back guarantee', which was never stated on their guarantee page (which I checked just prior to calling them). The page was changed within 2 hours of my conversation with them to read '...can be returned as part of our 90 day money back guarantee.' Luckily, Google still has the old version cached, but the real problem I'm having is how in the world do I get these pages verified in such a way that they will then stand up in court?"

"Electronic Frontiers Australia is along similar lines, sort of, and do sympathize with my position. Australian Consumer's Association (Choice) aren't too helpful either. The closest thing I've found is a Justice of the Peace, but they only can verify if one (physical) document is an exact (physical) copy of another. Is there anywhere that provides a service that will legally say that a document appeared on a particular site on a particular day and was last modified on such and such a date? Or am I disadvantaged just because I've used the latest technology to read (incorrect) documentation on a product? Is there a need for a service that can independently verify the state of a document as it appears today for future use?"
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Legal Verification of Web Pages? More

Legal Verification of Web Pages?

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  • Notary Public... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ameoba ( 173803 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2001 @10:58AM (#2405900)
    Well, IANAL & I'm a USian, but assuming that the item is relatively small (under $2000 or so?) having a Notary Public/Justice of the Peace mark both the website copy & the cached copy, as well as the modification dates on both, and a copy of your receipt/invoice would probably be more than enough evidence to get things taken care of in small claims court. Actually, the offer of taking them to court to resolve the issue will probably be more than enough to get your way.

    As part of the larger picture, contacting a Consumer Rights agency or the Better Business Bureau might be able to adress the business practices of the company as a whole.

    As a note, I seem to remember something about unopened, post-marked envelopes being a cheap substitute for a notary stamp, but I could be wrong.

    • Re:Notary Public... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ajuda ( 124386 )
      I don't think that they can notarize after the fact.. the whole point is that they can only notarize stuff when they see it happening. A copy of a website and the date stamp of the cached copy can both be faked. All he would be able to do is that you had a copy which may have been already altered when he stopped by...

      • What I was thinking was to use a notary that had internet access. One of the notaries in town, here, does PO-boxes, shipping, computer repair/sales & notary work. Wouldn't he be able to print out a webpage and mark it as being the contents of that page?
    • I believe I read somewhere that the postmarked envelope thing doesn't stand up in court. Too easy to tamper with the envelope I suppose.
  • Check out NetEvidence [netevidence.com].


    I haven't tried the site out personally. It looks to be aimed more at US corporations than individuals. YMMV.


    With a quick browse, I couldn't find any mention of cost, but I'm sure there is one.

  • What court, for what purpose? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Brian See ( 11276 ) <bsee@sUMLAUTpell ... .com minus punct> on Tuesday October 09, 2001 @03:48PM (#2407726)
    Like the answer to most legal questions, the answer to your question is probably "it depends".

    Caveat: IAAL, but this shouldn't be construed as legal advice. Furthermore, I'm a US lawyer. Consult with a lawyer admitted in your own jurisdiction for actual advice on the laws of Australia (or wherever).

    If you're only bringing a consumer suit, a printout of the (dated) Google cache is probably all you'd want to do, since any more would be ludicrously expensive given the amount in controversy.

    Under the (US) Federal Rules of Evidence, I don't see any way to make the document self-authenticating. Therefore, you'd have to present testimony that the Google cache page is authentic and accurate. (And the other side could attempt to rebut that testimony.)

    I guess it would be pretty cheap to print the cache (which you should definitely do), date-stamp the printout, and swear out a notarized affidavit with the printout attached, stating the date that you got the affidavit.

    In a normal civil suit with a sufficient budget for discovery, you could ask the other side to admit that the Google cache is accurate, or that they changed the web page terms and conditions after you purchased your product. If they don't admit it, or willfully lie to you (and you can subsequently prove it), they could be liable for fees and other disciplinary action.

    If you had an unlimited case budget, you could even attempt to subpoena Google, or get expert testimony regarding the date that Google cached the page.

  • Contact google (Score:2, Informative)

    by Lish ( 95509 )
    Quick, before the page gets recached, contact Google about your situation. They might be able to provide you with a copy of the file from the cache and a statement saying "this is when this file was collected" etc. Perhaps it could be notarized?

    Here is the Google contact [google.com] page. If you look under Corporate it gives a real phone number. Good luck!
  • Although there may not be anything now, it seems like there could be a market for a site that, at a users request, slurp a page (and images, if so desired),tarball it, GPG sign in, and send it to you. Since they are a impartial third party the date of the signature would be pretty solid as would the contents of the slurp. One could even have it act like Stamper which will sign anything sent to it over email, and post the signature to USENET (not the contents) to help bolster it's timestamp.
  • Just a quick update of what I ended up doing.

    A Justice of the Peace, in Australia, won't verify what is on a website. The next best thing is to get a solicitor to do this. I didn't. Instead, I got two IT professionals to make Statutory Declarations to the effect that the google cache showed what the page used to be and what the new page stated and the last modified date on the current page.

    After doing this, I approached the company and said, "I noticed that you changed your website guarantee." At which point they admitted that they had made a mistake and said that they would honour the guarantee as I had read it, which is a good thing.

    But to me, this has raised a few issues which I do feel a little uncomfortable with. The website guarantee formed part of an implicit contract between us and that contract is far too dynamic for my liking. I feel their needs to be an independent body that could verify the content of web pages. NetEvidence looks interesting, but I'm not sure it is what I was after (not much in the way of pricing, which says to me that it is far to expensive a service to actually advertise the damage to the wallet).

    At the moment, I think I've learned not to accept anything I read on the net to be binding...

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