Imagine you’re midway through building a website for your business. The developer contacts you for your Terms and Conditions page content.
You’ve spent weeks perfecting all the messaging, the About page, and all the other content. The Ts & Cs haven’t even crossed your mind.
I mean, after all, isn’t that just legal mumbo jumbo people stick in website footers? Does anyone even bother reading it?
You’ve just got a small business. Do you really need a Ts & Cs page?
Short answer: technically, no, you don’t, but you probably should. Read on for the detailed answer.
Overview
Let’s be honest. The Ts & Cs are unquestionably the dullest page on your website.
What do the Ts and Cs do? Well, in short, that page sets the rules for using your website. Nowadays most websites have one, though there’s no legal requirement for defining terms and conditions.
(NOTE: If you are gathering user’s personal data, you are required by law to have a formal Privacy Policy – even if you don’t have a Terms and Conditions page.)
So a Terms and Conditions page may not necessarily be required by law, but it’s still a very smart thing to include.
For example, this page can limit your liability if a customer should take you to court, as well as protect your rights to the content on your website.
If you ever have to face a legal battle, rest assured that a court of law will look at your website terms to determine the contractual terms between you and your customer. So make sure – really sure – that when you create this page, you approach it with the aim of it holding up in court.
Basics
The content you include in your Terms and Conditions page will always be unique to your business and website type. However, there are common themes to all Ts & Cs, despite your industry.
Here are some of the basic elements you’ll need to include.
Limiting liability
A basic disclaimer removing your liability from errors in your web content is always required. It’s generally a clause stating you can’t be held responsible for any errors in content.
If your website allows visitors to post content, you’ll need language that limits your liability from any offensive postings. Stick in a disclaimer that you don’t endorse users and you aren’t responsible for the statements made by third parties.
Copyright protection
Irrespective what your website does, always include a notice about copyright and trademark. For example, “Copyright © 2016. yourwebsite.com.” And yes, this does go in the footer.
Privacy policy
If you’re collecting any information (e.g. email addresses or credit card information), you need a privacy policy, which describes how information will or won’t be used.
A privacy policy is actually the only part of the Ts & Cs that is legally required. (We use Iubenda for website privacy policies.)
Governing jurisdiction
OK, long word alert, but this one is also rather important.
Your Ts & Cs also need to state which law governs your websites, i.e. where your website is operating from (state/province/country).
As an example, “These Terms and Conditions are governed by the laws of England and Wales.”
Creating Ts & Cs
It can seem overwhelming, but in reality creating your Ts & Cs page is quite straightforward.
There are three common methods to create Ts & Cs. Caveat: some choices are better than others.
1. Copy someone else
The idea here is every company has a Terms and Conditions page and nobody ever seems to read it. Why not just lift the wording from someone who looks like they know what they’re doing?
Don’t do this. As tempting as this may be, it’s not a good idea.
For starters, it’s copyright infringement to lift content from someone else’s site that’s not in the public domain. And more importantly, if you do copy from another site, you might not be able to rely on it to protect yourself in court.
Even if you can’t copy other people, it’s still smart to look at examples from businesses similar to yours to give you a sense of what you need to include in your own Ts & Cs.
2. Use a Ts & Cs generator
As there are plenty of websites that will generate Ts & Cs for you, there’s no real excuse to copy from another site. Simply search Google for “Terms and Conditions generator” and you’ll see dozens of options.
Any one of these sites will put together a basic set of Ts & Cs for you. In many cases this will be a perfectly viable option – particularly if you are not actually conducting any business from your website (i.e. your website only advertises your services).
3. Use a solicitor
Sometimes you might want to have a solicitor create or at least review your Ts & Cs. This will ensure they meet the specific needs of your business and your website visitors.
Small businesses should think about enlisting the services of a solicitor if they use their site for eCommerce (i.e. you actually transact business on your site rather than just use it as a brochure), gather users’ personal data, or are talking to an audience under 13 years of age. (This latter has special rules, which apply for marketing to minors, so you’ll want to make sure you are compliant with the law and your website reflects this.)
It’s not absolutely necessary to use a solicitor to get a good set of Terms and Conditions drafted. You can even get affordable legal services from an online provider (e.g. Rocket Lawyer) and that will typically be adequate.
Conclusion
So while it’s not legally necessary (unless you’re collecting user data), it is always sensible to have a Terms and Conditions statement for your website. It isn’t difficult to put one together and you can use either an online generator or an affordable solicitor.
The chances are nobody will ever read your Terms and Conditions, but they’ll certainly come in handy should any issues arise.
Edward Solomon has over 30 years’ experience in project management, technical education, computer networking, web design and development and is a Digital Business Consultant for PENNInk Productions Ltd.
