Colorado Woman Sues To Hold Web Crawlers To Contracts

Information Week Colorado Woman Sues To Hold Web Crawlers To Contracts: "Computers can enter into contracts on behalf of people. The Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) says that a 'contract may be formed by the interaction of electronic agents of the parties, even if no individual was aware of or reviewed the electronic agents' actions or the resulting terms and agreements.'"

Quite an interesting result -- not the first example of computational agents being accorded a status on par with human agents.