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Article: The dotted line.(Features)(Ideas)(Soundings)
- Article from:
- The Christian Science Monitor
- Article date:
- June 29, 2000
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 The Christian Science Publishing Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Just sign on the dotted line."
The first time I heard those words was in a church-quiet bank. I must have been all of six years old. My father was pointing to a form. We were opening my first savings account, and I was to sign my full legal name (of course, at 6 I didn't know I had a full legal name - James J. Bencivenga).
But what will fathers do in the not too distant future? And the rest of us as well? There may not be any dotted line to sign.
E-business is likely to do for the signed contract what the first Portuguese sailors looking for the Spice Islands did for the Dodo - club it into extinction. (See story page 14 on Internet contracts.)