Online sales and digital interactions create gray areas for territorial jurisdiction because they often lack a physical presence, making it unclear whether a business's website, social media activity, or digital advertisements constitute "purposeful availment" sufficient to establish minimum contacts in a particular state. Lawyers arguing for jurisdiction will emphasize the defendant's intentional targeting of the forum state through localized ads, interactive customer portals, or repeated sales to residents, while those opposing it will frame the interactions as passive, sporadic, or broadly accessible to a global audience, thus claiming the defendant could not reasonably anticipate being hauled into a distant court over incidental digital contact.
