Transparency and accountability are important aspects to any technological endeavor and are popular topics of research as many everyday items have become ‘smart’ and interact with user data on a regular basis. Recent technologies such as blockchain tout these traits through the design of their infrastructure and their ability as recordkeeping mechanisms. This project analyzes and compares records produced by non-fungible tokens (NFTs), an increasingly popular blockchain application for recording and trading digital assets, and compares them to ‘document standards,’ an interdisciplinary method of contract law, diplomatics, document/interface theory, and evidentiary proof, to see if they live up to the bar that has been set by a body of literature concerned with authentic documents. Through a close reading of the current policies on transparency (i.e., CCPA, GDPR), compliance and recordkeeping (i.e., FCPA, SOX, UETA), and the consideration of blockchain records as user-facing interfaces, this study draws the conclusion that without an effort to design these records with these various concerns in mind and from the perspectives of all three stakeholders (Users, Firms, and Regulators), any transparency will only be illusory and could serve the opposite purpose for bad actors if not resolved.

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With a budding market of widespread smart contract implementation on the horizon, there is much conversation about how to regulate this new technology. Discourse on standard form contracts (SFCs) and how they have been adopted in a digital environment is useful toward predicting how smart contracts might be interpreted. This essay provides a critical review of the discourse surrounding digitised SFCs and applies it to issues in smart contract regulation. An exploration of the literature surrounding specific instances SFCs finds that it lacks a close examination of the textual and documentary aspects of SFCs, which are particularly important in a digital environment as a shift in medium prompts a different procedural process. Instead, common perspectives are either based on outdated notions of paper versions of these contracts or on ideologies of industry and business that do not sufficiently address the needs of consumers/users in the digital age. Most importantly, noting the failure of contract law to address the inequities of SFCs in this environment can help prevent them from being codified further with smart contracts.

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Standard form consumer contracts (SFCCs) are drafted by businesses and presented to consumers on a non-negotiable basis, commonly appearing as Terms of Service (ToS) agreements in the margins of many popular web pages. This genre of contract is afforded its 'standard form' so as to increase the efficiency of transactions and save costs, which are ostensibly passed on to consumers. Since one party is generally less powerful in terms of access to information and resources, however, these contracts are often acknowledged as imbalanced and have been of concern for consumer rights in recent years. While some have characterized these issues as a 'duty to read' for consumers or as egregious terms and weak disclosures by drafters,' this project suggests at least part of the issues exist from a lack of consideration of the document itself (i.e., medium, format, authenticity, reliability, stability) and the processes that deem it 'standard.' It makes use of the disciplines that specialise in these topics, including document theory, library and information science, diplomatics, standards of records management, textual criticism and bibliography, and evidence to offer a revised perspective on SFCC issues and a new measure of assessment. Ultimately, it concludes that current governance is not adequate to address the issues of these agreements and suggests three principles, or shifts in concept: 1) standardisation, not standard practise; 2) explanation, not notification; and 3) documentation, not integration.