Terms and Conditions: Checklist

This checklist is based on UK law. It was last updated in April 2005.

• Are you intending to use your site:
  • to advertise goods or services?
  • to sell goods?
  • to provide services?
  • to provide or obtain information?
  • to provide a combination of the above?
• Have you included information about your company? (full company name, company registration number for a limited company, business address, VAT number if relevant, email address, etc.) Is this information clearly displayed to your potential customer? (See our articles on Dealing with Consumers, The UK's E-Commerce Regulations)
• Have you properly incorporated your terms and conditions? (See our guide, On-line Contract Formation)
• Are your website terms and conditions fair and reasonable?
• Are they capable of being saved and printed properly?
• Do you direct your customer towards the terms and conditions during the sale process?
• Do you advise your customer of all the technical steps to make a transaction?
• Do you make it clear that your potential customer is making an offer when placing an order which you either accept or decline?
• Have you included a mechanism in relation to acceptance of orders? Do you provide for the timing and deemed place of sending and receipt of electronic communications? (See our guide, On-line Contract Formation)
• Have you limited your liability? (See our guide on Using Exemption Clauses in Web Sales)
  • Has this been brought to the attention of your customer?
  • Is it reasonable?
  • If you are dealing with the USA, is it in bold type and capital letters?
• Can you insure your liability?
• Are your prices clear and unambiguous?
• Have you advised yourpotential customers of delivery costs and relevant taxes?
• Have you provided for the payment mechanism? If payment is by credit card, have you made it clear that receipt of payment does not mean that you have accepted an order and that you reserve the right to return the payment to the customer?
• Have you included any necessary confirmations from the customer as to age and/or authority to use the payment card?
• Does the site provide a means of correcting errors on the page (a "clear" button)?
• Have you included provisions as to:
  • cooling-off period?
  • delivery?
  • returns and refunds policy?
  • any rights that the consumer may have under local law? (e.g. do distance selling regulations apply?)
  • choice of law and forum clause?
  • your ability to change terms on notice?

Notices, licences and disclaimers

• Have you included an appropriate data protection notice? (See our guide on Data Protection)
• Do you need to include any other notices? (e.g. not selling to customers resident in certain countries?)
• Have you included an on-line copyright notice? Does it grant a limited licence? (e.g. personal use, copy to hard disk, print etc.)
• Have you included a linking policy?
• Have you included all necessary disclaimers? Are they clear and brought to the attention of visitors to the site?

Advertising agreement

• Does the person placing the advertisement have the authority to place the advertisement?
• Have you included an indemnity against any third party claim for intellectual property infringement?
• Have you provided for the person placing the advertisement to check the accuracy of the advertisement?
• Have you provided for the person placing the advertisement to be responsible for maintaining copies of the advertisement?
• Have you provided within the agreement the position on your site that the advertisement is to appear and the size of the advertisement? (e.g. home page or other page.)
• Do you have the right to move the advertisement to other pages on your site or to remove the advertisement in its entirety?
• What reports have you agreed to provide to the person placing the advertisement in relation to access to your site? Are you able to provide this information?
• Have you included suitable confidentiality and limitation of liability provisions?
• Do you have any obligation to promote your web site? If so, have you capped that liability?
• How and when are you to get paid? (e.g. flat fee, click-through, commission etc?)
• Have you been provided with the URL of the site to which the advertisement links? Will you be notified if this changes?
• Have you imposed an obligation on the person placing the advertisement to ensure that the advertisement complies with all relevant advertising codes and regulations? Is this backed by an indemnity?
• Do you have any right to terminate the agreement? If so in what circumstances and what are the consequences of termination?