As we explained in one of our recent ecommerce blogs, website terms of use are the terms and conditions that govern the way all visitors to your website or app actually use it. It’s recommended that you include terms of use on your website because they help you to set out guidelines for how customers and other visitors should use your website.
Although there’s no legal requirement for your website to put terms of use in place, having them will help to protect your business from users copying your content or using the website in an undesirable way.
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Reasons to have terms of use on your website
Website terms of use safeguard your business by:
- protecting your site from unauthorised use;
- setting guidelines for how the public and/or your users can post or submit content to your site;
- protecting your intellectual property from being copied or used in a way you don’t intend; and
- limiting your liability to users of the website if they have any problems with your site (like their computer getting a virus after they’ve used your site).
Although website terms of use are not a legal requirement, they are a key way of protecting your business and helping your site run efficiently and successfully.
You can use our template to create your website terms of use. It includes terms such as a copyright notice to protect the contents of your website and a general disclaimer to help protect you from liability. It also includes clauses to protect you from users that submit content to your website in an undesirable way. See this blog for further guidance on what your terms of use should include, how to draft them, and how to change and update them.
Other policies alongside your website terms of use
Your terms of use should be used in conjunction with a Privacy policy and a Cookie policy which explain how you will gather and use information from people who access your website and how you use cookies.
Also note that if you make sales online, you should make sure your terms and conditions of sale are legally sound. These are different from your terms of use. You can find more guidance on writing your terms and conditions of sale in this blog.
Contact information you need on your website
In addition to having a cookie policy, privacy policy, terms and conditions of sale (if you use your website for ecommerce) and website terms of use, you must include the following details on your website:
- the name and address of your business;
- contact details, including an email address;
- company details for your business (if it is run through a limited company);
- your business’s VAT number, if registered; and
- if your business is part of a regulated profession, or is supervised under an authorisation scheme, details of that profession or scheme and a link to any rules or code of conduct applicable to you as a result.
Most businesses include this information in their website footer or on their contact details page.
Ensuring your website content is legally compliant
There’s a range of things to think about when creating a website – to help you, we’ve created a Checklist of information to include to ensure your website is legally compliant to check you haven’t missed any essential requirements on your website. This includes information on customer rights during online sales.
Other things to consider include:
- Being careful not to infringe other people’s intellectual property (IP) when putting content on your website (such as pictures or writing). It is illegal to make someone else’s copyrighted work available to the public, which can happen if you put creative work up on your website without permission. For further guidance on ensuring any creative work you use or display on your site belongs to you (or you have permission to use someone else’s work) see our Q&A.
- If you post customer reviews on your website, you must not present reviews in a misleading way. Make sure your website clearly distinguishes between customer testimonials selected by you, and customer reviews. If you allow customers to post reviews on your website, you must ensure that you:
- publish all genuine, lawful and relevant reviews (regardless of whether the reviews are positive or negative);
- don’t order the reviews so that positive reviews automatically appear at the top; and
- don’t unreasonably delay publication of reviews.
- Being aware of your data protection and privacy obligations (see our blogs on privacy policies and cookie policies for more).
Our Starting an online business toolkit contains all the documents you need to start your ecommerce website, as well as a handy how-to guide explaining your legal obligations and how to use each document.
The content in this article is up to date at the date of publishing. The information provided is intended only for information purposes, and is not for the purpose of providing legal advice. Sparqa Legal’s Terms of Use apply.
Marion joined Sparqa Legal as a Senior Legal Editor in 2018. She previously worked as a corporate/commercial lawyer for five years at one of New Zealand’s leading law firms, Kensington Swan (now Dentons Kensington Swan), and as an in-house legal consultant for a UK tech company. Marion regularly writes for Sparqa’s blog, contributing across its commercial, IP and health and safety law content.