Procedural rules, though, often affect substantive rights. Permitting electronic delivery of consumer notices, contracts, and disclosures may undermine effectiveness of some existing consumer protection statutes. Separate signature and separate initialing requirements are often used in consumer laws to draw attention to contractual provisions with a special impact on the customer. If these statutes are not exempted, some of their requirements may be weakened by UETA's broad substitution of electronic signatures for ordinary signatures. Special notice statutes include a notice before infringing upon a medical patient's privacy.
Notices affecting legal rights include health-care denial notices.
Examples of these statutes include foreclosure statutes, auto conditional sale and loan repossession-related notices, and eviction notices. Electronic Commerce is Here to Stay Advocates need to recognize that electronic commerce is here and will affect all consumers, rich or poor. Consequently, consumer laws must be evaluated in light of electronic commerce. In many cases, consumer laws will be rendered obsolete if they are not updated at the same time that rules facilitating electronic commerce are put into place. Despite its problems, UETA is more balanced than many of the electronic record and electronic signature proposals that have been made in Congress.