Websites often have to display legal documents and if the website is multilingual, as many are these days, then there will also be a need for legal document translations specifically aimed at making website legal material accessible to those whose language is not English.

Website legal documents tend to be unobtrusive. If you are browsing a website that has the company’s terms and conditions at the end, for instance, or on a separate page, you may not even bother to examine what is written, yet its very presence may be mandatory.

Legal documents that are routinely displayed on websites include:

• compliance with disclosure obligations;
• maintenance of consumers’ rights;
• licensing use of website to registered users only;
• limitation of liability of the website owner with respect to the website’s use;
• setting out the basis on what sorts of goods are offered to the website users;
• terms and conditions of website use;

Terms and Conditions of Website Use

Most websites that have a commercial function will at least have terms and conditions published which govern the way the website is used. These terms would normally include disclosure obligations, a liability disclosure and should detail the licensing of the website for its users.

Terms and conditions may not be called that on the website. They have various other names, which are all variations on a combination of the words terms, use, conditions and disclaimers

It is important from a legal perspective for any business that uses its website to sell goods and services to detail its terms and conditions of sale. There may be consumer protection legislation applicable which determines that terms and conditions comply with it. This is more important when website customers are consumers rather than individual businesses.

Any websites that process personal data of any kind will be obliged by legislation on data protection to disclose specific information to website users. There may be website privacy policies made available for these disclosures which should be separated from terms and conditions.