Clause Adoption Over Time — TOS Tracker

2 min read Original article ↗

How the prevalence of key legal clauses has changed across 121318 tracked documents, 1997–2026.

Data Sources: 121318 documents tracked, 35 with clause extractions. Includes the Princeton-Leuven Corpus (2009–2019) and live monitoring (2024–present).

Adoption Rate Chart

Percentage of tracked documents containing each clause type, by year.

Mandatory ArbitrationClass Action WaiverJury Trial WaiverLimitation of LiabilityIndemnificationData CollectionThird-Party Data SharingData Sale (Yes)Data Sale (No)Data Sale Opt-OutGoverning LawAccount TerminationUnilateral ModificationAssignmentAutomated Decision-MakingProhibited Conduct

Clause Adoption Rate (2009–2026) % of Documents 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026

Yearly Snapshot

Year Docs Mandatory ArClass ActionJury Trial WLimitation oIndemnificatData CollectThird-Party Data Sale (YData Sale (NData Sale OpGoverning LaAccount TermUnilateral MAssignmentAutomated DeProhibited C
2009 4268 0.8%0%0%0.5%1.5%29.9%22.6%0%2.5%0%1.1%1.1%4.8%0%0%8.4%
2010 5599 1.1%0%0%0.5%1.3%31.4%24.1%0%3%0.1%1.2%1.1%4.9%0%0%9.1%
2011 6938 0.7%0.1%0%0.5%1.5%31.8%24.5%0%3.4%0.1%1.2%1.1%5.2%0.1%0%9.3%
2012 7825 1%0.1%0%0.6%1.5%31.7%24.1%0%3.5%0.1%1.2%1.2%4.7%0.1%0%9.5%
2013 8699 0.8%0%0%0.6%1.5%31.9%24.9%0%4.3%0.1%1.2%1.2%5.1%0.1%0%9.8%
2014 9258 0.9%0.1%0%0.6%1.8%32.6%25.8%0%4.7%0.1%1.6%1.4%5.3%0.1%0%10.8%
2015 9693 0.7%0.1%0%0.7%1.9%32.8%26.4%0%5.2%0.1%1.7%1.4%5.1%0.1%0%10.9%
2016 9875 1.8%0.2%0.1%0.9%2%36.3%29.1%0%7.5%0.2%1.9%1.8%5.9%0.2%0%13.3%
2017 8969 2.5%0.1%0.1%1%2.7%40%31.5%0%8.9%0.4%2.4%2.8%6.4%0.2%0.1%15.7%
2018 8415 3.7%0.2%0.1%1.6%3.8%49.1%41.1%0%11.8%0.9%3%3.6%8.9%0.4%0.8%21%
2019 9024 6.5%0.3%0.1%1.9%6.2%92.6%77.3%0.1%32.6%5.2%5.3%5.7%16.4%0.9%2.8%39.8%
2020 243 18.9%7.8%2.9%30.9%31.7%78.6%72.8%0%17.7%10.7%34.2%33.3%37.9%4.9%2.1%62.6%
2021 220 18.2%11.4%5.9%34.1%35%78.6%69.5%0%10.5%5.5%34.1%37.3%32.7%6.4%1.4%64.5%
2022 256 22.3%11.3%3.1%36.3%36.7%77.3%68.8%1.2%12.9%7.8%37.9%41%34.8%5.1%2.7%69.5%
2023 358 27.4%12.8%6.4%36.3%42.2%81.6%74.3%0.6%15.9%10.3%38.8%43.3%36.6%5.3%2.5%66.8%
2024 573 27.7%14.5%8%36.8%39.6%84.5%74.5%0.2%18.3%11.3%37.3%36.1%35.1%5.6%2.4%66.3%
2025 1222 27.4%14.5%7.7%36.1%34.9%82.2%73.3%0.7%22.7%14.9%35.8%34.9%33.2%5.4%4.8%64.2%
2026 13351 9.2%3.5%1.6%23.8%20.6%65.6%45.6%0.1%11.6%2.9%24.4%20.7%18.3%1.7%0.9%43.7%

Compare Two Years

Methodology

Adoption rate = documents with clause / total documents with any version in that year. Clause extraction uses pattern matching (details). Historical coverage is uneven—early years have fewer tracked documents. See Research for dataset access.