Canadian Supreme Court on internet contracts 

One weekend, Dell in Canada published prices for its Axim computers of C$89 and C$118 (instead of (C$379 and $549) on its website by mistake.  It fixed up the mistake on the Monday.  While it usually had 2 or 3 customers for Axims over a weekend, that weekend, it had 354 from Quebec.  Dell tried to block the class action on the basis of an arbitration clause incorporated into the contracts by a hyperlink to standard terms and conditions.

The lower courts refused to enforce the arbitration clause or uphold the validity of terms and conditions which were incorporated into the contract by means of a hyperlink.

According to Prof. Michael Geist, the Canadian Supreme Court reversed, upholding the enforceability of arbitration clauses and the validity of hyperlinking to the terms and conditions in ecommerce contracts ...

Prof. Geist here.  Jonathon Ho here.

Dell v Union des consommateurs [2007] SCC 34.

Now, I wouldn't want to suggest that Australian contract law and Canadian contract law are on all fours.  But, this decision seems to be the first by a final court of appeal in a major common law jurisdiction (OK OK, Quebec is Code civil but ...), so it has to be worthwhile studying it.

I would have also thought, if the same situation arose here, Dell would have little prospect of avoiding the ACCC stepping in and forcing it to honour the advertised price.  See e.g. Dell's "oops" in NSW and ACCC guidance here.  A bit more Dell and s 52 here.

The CLRC reviewed some of the issues such contracts raise in chapter 5 of its Copyright and Cotract reference.