Michigan Law Review Volume 90 Issue 5 1992 Legal Responses to Commercial Transactions Employing Novel Communications Media John Robinson Thomas University of Michigan Law School Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr Part of the Commercial Law Commons, Communications Law Commons, Internet Law Commons, and the Science and Technology Law Commons Recommended Citation John R. Thomas, Legal Responses to Commercial Transactions Employing Novel Communications Media, 90 MICH. L. REV. 1145 (1992). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol90/iss5/8 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the Michigan Law Review at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Legal Responses to Commercial Transactions Employing Novel Communications Media John Robinson Thomas It is becoming more and more important that the rules governing negotiations made by telegraph should be clearly defined and set tled, as contracts thus made are constantly increasing in number and magnitude. - Scott & Jarnagin, A Treatise Upon the Law of Telegraphs, 1868. 1 Electronic messaging systems and electronic data interchange are changing the way businesses negotiate and enter into contracts. These changes require a reexamination of fundamental contract principles. - American Bar Association, Report on Electronic Messaging, 1988.2 More than a century ago, the telegraph3 revolutionized communi cations. For the first time, telegraphed messages spanned distances of thousands of miles, eliminating barriers of time and space.