CHILE Law and Practice Contributed by: Carolina Cabrera, LawTech
es and confirmation. Advanced electronic signatures may be needed or advisable where stronger evidence is required. Online businesses must also comply with data pro - tection obligations for account creation, purchases, delivery, support, marketing, profiling, analytics, fraud prevention and automated processing. Where pay - ments or regulated financial services are involved, fur - ther rules apply on payment channels, unauthorised transactions, security, authentication and regulatory supervision. 1.2.3 Formation of Contracts Online Online contracts are generally valid and enforceable in Chile. There is no special formality merely because a contract is entered into online. The starting point is ordinary contract law: capacity, consent, lawful object and lawful cause, plus commercial rules on offer and acceptance where relevant. The Electronic Signature Law recognises electronic documents and signatures and is based on techno - logical neutrality, functional equivalence and inter - national compatibility. Acts and contracts executed electronically generally produce the same effects as paper-based contracts, subject to statutory excep - tions. For most private online contracts, a simple electronic signature or electronic acceptance mechanism is suf - ficient if consent can be evidenced. This may include click-through acceptance, platform workflows, elec - tronic execution or other processes that identify the user and preserve the accepted terms. Advanced electronic signature is required where the electronic document has the status of a public instru - ment and is often used where stronger evidence of identity, integrity, date and non-repudiation is advis - able. Certain acts remain excluded, such as those requiring non-electronic solemnities, personal appear - ance or family law formalities. In B2C e-commerce, consumers must have clear prior access to terms and the ability to store or print them. Before payment, a transaction summary must be displayed, and after conclusion the seller must
send written confirmation. The main practical issue is therefore not validity alone, but evidence of consent, terms, notices and confirmation. 2. Software Licensing and “As a Service” Provision 2.1 “On Premise” Licence Models Rather Than SaaS Solutions Customers in Chile do not usually require on-premise licensing because SaaS is legally restricted. SaaS and cloud models are widely used. However, regu - lated, critical or legacy-heavy customers may prefer on-premise models because they offer greater control over infrastructure, data, security, continuity and cus - tomisation. A first driver is regulatory and operational con - trol. Banks, payment companies, utilities, telecoms operators, healthcare providers and other sensitive businesses may need to demonstrate control over technology environments, outsourced services, audit - ability, incident response and business continuity. Data control is also important. Customers may prefer on-premise deployment where they process sensitive, confidential, regulated or strategically important data, especially where they have concerns about data loca - tion, cross-border access, subcontracting, encryption or regulator and court requests. Continuity, legacy integration and customisation also matter. Some systems must remain available during connectivity failures, provider outages or cloud dis - ruptions, and many large companies still operate core systems that were not designed for cloud-native inte - gration. Vendor lock-in and pricing may also influence the decision. SaaS gives suppliers more control over hosting, upgrades, pricing, feature changes and end- of-life decisions. Some customers also prefer capital expenditure or perpetual licences over recurring sub - scriptions. Hybrid models remain common.
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