Emoticons and Pre-Contractual Liability.

Emoticons or emojis, also known as smileys, are stylized reproductions of the main facial expressions. The term "emoticon" is a portmanteau of the English words "emotion" and "icon," used to indicate a small image that reproduces our most common emotions. However, the original group of emoticons, consisting of the typical smile, laugh, frown, cry, snort, and so on, has now expanded to include a wide variety of symbols and images.
These drawings, used mainly on internet and in messages to add extra-verbal components to written communication, have become so common that, according to some, they constitute a truly new digital language.

Interestingly, in this regard, is what recently happened in Israel, where a homeowner successfully reported a couple who had misled him by writing a message full of emojis.
More specifically, the landlord, Yaniv Dahan, posted an ad for renting his home on a real estate website, where the unfortunate couple responded, according to the judge, expressing a declaration of intent. Indeed, after the two young people responded to the ad, Mr. Dahan deleted his ad, but the couple never contacted him again. The case was then brought to the attention of the judges, who, among the evidence used against the defendants, considered part of the text written in response to the ad, containing images depicting various expressions and objects, from the "v" gesture of the fingers to a ballerina and a bottle of champagne being opened.
The judge ruled in favor of Dahan, ordering the couple to pay approximately $2,000 in damages for pre-contractual liability. Specifically, the judge justified his decision by explaining that the emojis used by the couple, including the bottle and the ballerina, indicated optimism and positivity and, therefore, their intention to enter into the lease. Although this message did not constitute a binding contract between the parties, the judge held it sufficient to give rise to a legitimate expectation regarding the intention to enter into one in the future.

Certainly, and this is now a common daily experience for most, emoticons are intuitive and immediate symbols, as they convey a feeling or a reference that would be difficult to translate into words, and which, above all, would take longer to write out in full with letters.
However, we should ask ourselves whether the cute smiley faces, in addition to simplifying life and eliminating ambiguities by clarifying a concept, have not replaced a good part of the feelings, or rather the will to express them, making virtual communication lighter and more unconscious and therefore less representative of the will of the individual.

For now this Israeli ruling is an isolated case, but it certainly calls us to reflect on this issue and to be careful about what we write ;-)