15 Website Legal Requirements From a Lawyer for...

If you have a website or online business, do you know the website legal requirements you need to comply with?

Today, just about every business has some online presence.

As website owners, it’s important to understand that there are many website legal requirements—most of which you probably aren’t even aware of.

But whether you’re aware of these requirements or not, you could find yourself in legal hot water if you miss something.

One of the main reasons I chose my career as a business lawyer was to help business owners like you avoid legal trouble.

Part of that is understanding your website’s legal requirements, aka knowing your legal obligations for online businesses.

While some legal requirements may vary depending on the data your website collects and your business industry, I’m covering the main legal obligations EVERY small business owner must know.

You’ll learn the 15 essential legal requirements of all websites, as well as how to protect your business and avoid legal issues.

It’s hard to find this comprehensive information for free, so I’d save this article for future reference.

Also if you have any specific questions about your particular business then you can always book a call with me here.

Table of Contents

Everything this article covers can be applied to:

Service providers
Online service
Course creators
Brick-and-mortar business owners
Coaches and consultants
eCommerce websites
And more!

What are Website Legal Requirements?

There are many different website requirements ranging from more general to legal obligations.

More general requirements include:

A domain name
Website Hosting
XML Site map
SSL (Security Socket Layer)
Mobile-friendly theme
A user-friendly menu

As far as website legal requirements, you need:

Legal pages (Disclaimers, Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions, and more)
Data security requirements
Cookie requirements
Protection of your digital products such as courses here
Plagiarism and copyright requirements
Compliance with Anti-spam laws
Trademark protection
And more!

These are just some of the main things every website owner needs to follow to legally protect their business interests.

Now, let’s explore the website’s legal requirements in more detail.

15 Website Legal Requirements Every Small Business Must Know

If you’re wondering about the various laws and different requirements website owners must comply with, we will cover the important ones below.

Many of these requirements are legally required by law, and others will protect you from costly lawsuits, fines, and other legal issues.

While this isn’t specific legal advice, as an entrepreneur and business lawyer, I see many other bloggers and business owners confused about the legal side of their business.

One thing that trips many people up is which legal documents they need to safeguard their business and cover themselves legally.

So watch this video to learn more.

And don’t worry—I’m also showing you how to obtain the legal agreements and documents every business owner with a website needs.

These are my easy-to-use DIY legal templates that have helped thousands of entrepreneurs.

1. Website Terms and Conditions

There are TWO types of terms and conditions as I explain in this short reel.

If you have an online website, shop, or sell online courses or eBooks, you need terms and conditions or rules that govern how people use them.

They are also known as a terms of use agreement, terms of service, or website terms.

A terms and conditions page explains the legal obligations users have with a lot of legalese that can get confusing (but we have you covered).

We’re talking about important legal elements such as language to protect your intellectual property or product. Also, how customers can use your product or website, limitation of legal liability language, and a whole lot more.

But you can skip the DIY or free legal template because I have already created a terms and conditions legal template to fully protect your business and products.

This template is a MUST to outline your website rules.

BUT if you sell courses then I have specific Terms and Conditions for courses that you can download here.

2. Data Privacy Policies and Storage Requirements

Now when it comes to website legal requirements, you must comply with data privacy laws.

Some of the most important website legal requirements center around data privacy and storage.

You may have heard of them because of laws and policies centering around:

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)
CCPA and COPPA (California Consumer Privacy Act and California Online Privacy Protection Act)
VCDPA (Virginia’s Consumer Data Protection Act)
Other state, U.S., and global privacy laws.

These laws govern personal data collection and how you store user data and private information.

The most well-known is the GDPR law enacted by the European Union, which caused quite a stir back in 2018.

If your website collects personal data, such as email addresses, phone numbers, and other contact information, you need a privacy policy.

Many states and countries followed suit, and while they may all differ, they essentially require similar things.

You must explain how, when, what, and where you collect personal data or user information, including third-party information collection, rights of data subjects, and more.

This Privacy Policy Template covers everything you need to comply with global privacy policies.

I recommend grabbing my Starter, Premium or VIP legal bundle for full legal protection and peace of mind.

3. Disclaimers

Another important legal document every website needs is a disclaimer.

A disclaimer page is critical in case website visitors rely on the information your website provides, suffer a negative outcome, and want to take legal action.

A disclaimer protects you from that legal issue.

There are several types of website disclaimers, including:

Medical disclaimers
Testimonial disclaimers
Copyright Disclaimer
Disclaimers about content written by third parties or third-party services
Affiliate disclosures
AI disclaimer

The best way to get these 3 legal pages above for your website is with our Starter or Premium Legal Bundle.

4. Copyright and Plagiarism

I often get legal questions such as, “can I copy someone else’s content or post photo on social media“?

There are copyright laws against this that you need to know.

Whether a creator or owner registers their website content or not, it’s considered copyrighted as soon as the content is published in original form.

Plagiarism refers to the unattributed and/or unauthorized use of someone else’s content.

Make sure the content you use on your website or in blog posts is original and not taken from someone else’s website or content.

Otherwise, you could be guilty of copyright infringement, whether it’s unknowingly or not.

You would want to include a copyright notice on intellectual property whenever possible, like for courses, documents, published articles, and other content.

This notice usually includes the © symbol or the word “Copyright,” the year of publication, and the name of the copyright owner (often the business name).

Use my Copyright Notice and Disclaimer template here for this purpose.

5. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)

While protecting your intellectual property rights is important, you also want to ensure that you’re respecting others as well, or you could receive a DMCA request requiring you to cease and desist and remove the stolen content from your website.

You should also familiarize yourself with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of the United States, which protects copyright holders from online theft.

It covers movies, text, music, and any other content copyrighted.

The primary purpose of the DMCA is to protect the rights and interests of creators and content owners in the digital age.

With the advancement of technology, it has become easier for people to infringe on copyright laws by creating unauthorized copies or distributing copyrighted material without permission.

The DMCA aims to combat this by providing a legal framework for protecting copyrighted material online and holding those responsible for copyright infringement accountable.

Free DMCA Takedown Notice Template (Written by a Lawyer)

Need a FREE DMCA takedown notice template? Sign up for my template below.

6. Cookie Policy

Under the CCPA, CPRA, EU Cookie Law, and other cookie requirements, you must inform website visitors HOW you use the cookies you collect.

You can comply with the specific requirements governing the use of cookies in your privacy policy or a separate cookie policy.

You also must have a cookie consent notice on your website that allows users to manage how you use the cookies associated with them.

You’re legally required to have the following elements in your cookie policy:

What cookies are, why, and how your site uses them, including how you collect data
Disclosing that your site uses and stores cookies
The types of cookies third parties or you use
Why you or a third party collect the data you do
Cookie uses policy language that is clear and easy to understand
Inform visitors how they can opt-out, opt-in, or customize the information stored

Don’t worry, you can grab my Privacy Policy template here that includes ALL the legalese you need!

7. Accessibility Laws and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) website compliance

The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that everyone has equal access to websites, including people with visual or hearing impairments.

ADA was signed into law in July of 1990, and luckily, the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) created Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

Web Accessibility is a pretty big deal as far as website legal requirements.

Did you know that you can get sued for not meeting accessibility requirements? And it’s not just large companies getting sued for not complying with ADA requirements.

I know online business owners who have been sued for over $50,000 because their website didn’t meet these website compliance requirements.

The website accessibility legal requirements include:

Web reading tools
Larger fonts
Alt text (so people with visual impairments using screen readers understand what the image is)
Transcripts or captions for videos
Clear contrast between backgrounds and fonts
and more!

Complying with ADA website laws is mandatory, and that’s why I created my ADA Compliance Bundle for entrepreneurs.

This legal bundle gives you everything you need to prevent accessibility lawsuits, including:

An ADA Guide
ADA and WCAG Checklist
A bonus Website Accessibility Statement Template to post on your website
Another bonus of two recommendations for Accessibility Plugins to improve accessibility.

Download this legal bundle here.

8. Security (HTTPS) and SSL Certificate

Proper safety and security measures are critical when you store someone’s private information.

While this is important for all websites, having a website with HTTPS is especially important for e-commerce websites or people who have an online store.

The https stands for Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol Secure) and is the secure version of HTTP.

Another way to reduce liability as a website owner is to make sure your website has an SSL Certificate (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate.

An SSL establishes an encrypted link between a server and a client, such as a website, browser, or mail server and mail client.

It prevents hackers from seeing or stealing sensitive information like credit card numbers, login credentials, social security numbers, and more.

If you’d like to rank your blog posts on the FIRST page of Google then I highly recommend using this amazing SEO tool from day one! Learn more by watching the video here.

9. Compliance with Anti-SPAM Laws

Complying with anti-spam laws is another website legal requirement you need to think about.

Spam includes any irrelevant or unsolicited emails or calls (or robocalls) sent in bulk to a list of people.

It can also include fraudulent messages such as computer viruses and phishing scams, as well as unsolicited commercial emails.

The anti-spam laws are especially relevant to online business owners who have email lists and send large volumes of emails daily or weekly.

Several countries have created laws regarding spam, including the (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) or Canada’s Anti-Spam Law, with a stricter opt-in system for marketing emails. GDPR also covers spam.

These are legal issues you don’t want to deal with. It’s important to follow all applicable laws when emailing your target audience.

If you use this email service provider, it makes complying with anti-spam laws much easier.

10. Content Attribution and Licensing

As content creators, we create a lot of content.

And you can now create content 10x faster with this AI tool.

If you are writing blog posts, you can use this AI SEO tool to make sure your blog posts are ranking on the FIRST page of Google!

So, besides creating original content, you may curate other pieces, such as photos, graphics, videos, and other content types.

Besides copyright laws, if you use content created by third parties, you must look at their license terms and provide attribution to the original creator.

You can also use content licensing to make money from media such as:

Images
Infographics
Audio content
Photos
Music
Social media content
Tables
Logos
Drawings
Symbols
And more!

You can also get a content license from another content creator for exclusive temporary rights to certain content.

And for that, you’d need this License Agreement template.

11. Trademark Notice

Similar to a copyright notice, a trademark notice informs visitors of the ownership of any registered trademarks associated with your business.

This helps prevent others from using your business name, logo, or other branding elements without permission.

If you are looking to register a trademark, start with conducting a proper trademark search with me here.

Need your LLC filed correctly in just 1 hour? (plus free consultation with a lawyer) Sign up for our 1-hour Done-with-you LLC service here.

12. Age Verification

If your business offers products or services that are age-restricted, such as alcohol or tobacco, it is essential to implement an age verification policy.

This ensures that users are of legal age to purchase these items, helping you comply with regulations and protecting your business from potential liabilities.

This policy can involve asking users to confirm their age through a simple prompt or using advanced verification systems to ensure compliance.

13. FTC Compliance

FTC compliance refers to adhering to regulations set by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), such as truth-in-advertising laws and consumer protection guidelines.

If your website includes any advertisements or sponsored content, you must disclose it on your website as part of your Disclaimer page.

If you don’t have proper FTC disclosures on your website then make sure to grab my Disclaimer template here.

This template includes the legal disclosures and language you’d need to ensure FTC compliance and avoid audits and fines.

14. Industry Specific Legal Requirements

If your business operates in a specific industry, such as healthcare or finance, there may be additional legal requirements that you must comply with.

For example, healthcare businesses are required to follow HIPAA regulations for protecting patient information, while financial institutions must comply with the GLBA for safeguarding consumer financial data.

HIPAA

HIPAA stands for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

It’s a federal law that sets standards for protecting sensitive patient information.

HIPAA applies to healthcare providers, doctors, health plans, and businesses that handle health-related sensitive data.

These entities must comply with HIPAA regulations to protect patients’ personal information, including medical records and billing information.

GLBA

GLBA stands for Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

It is a federal law that requires financial institutions to explain their information-sharing practices to their customers and safeguard sensitive customer data.

This includes protecting consumers’ personal and financial information from unauthorized access or use by third parties.

Financial institutions are required to have privacy policies in place and implement security measures to comply with the GLBA.

It is important for businesses operating in these industries to have clear policies in place to ensure compliance with these laws and protect client confidentiality.

15. User-Generated Content Policy

If your website allows users to submit content, such as guest posts, videos, images, reviews or comments, it’s important to have a user-generated content policy in place.

This policy should outline the rights of the users submitting content, your rights to use or moderate this content, and any guidelines or rules for acceptable submissions.

For example, I accept guest posts on my website from other creators and bloggers but I use this Guest Blogger agreement to make sure I get legal rights to use that content as I wish.

You need to do the same so you can freely modify, use the content received.

Another example, if you are paying a creator to create sponsored content for your website, you’d use a Sponsorship agreement here for that purpose.

By clearly defining these terms, you will be able to properly manage the quality of content on your site and protect your business from potential liability.

And you can get both the Guest Blogger and Sponsored Posts contract templates (along with 10 more templates) in my VIP legal bundle here.

FAQs on Website Legal Requirements

Below are answers to common questions about website legal requirements.

What is required by law on a website?

There are several legal requirements for any business website as shown above.

Legal pages are incredibly important to protect your business.

As a recap, you must have the following legal pages posted on your website:

- Terms and conditions – Your expectations and guidelines for website users and can include things like a comment policy, refund policy, and general terms of use.
- Privacy policy – A privacy policy page explains your data security measures and what you do with your people’s personal information you collect on your website (Think GDPR, CCPA, CalOPPA, etc.)
- Disclaimer – In case someone relies on the information on your site and suffers a negative outcome (Medical disclaimers, copyright disclaimers, AI disclaimer if you use AI in business etc.)
- Cookie policy – This policy tells visitors that you use cookies to track them on their devices.
- ADA compliance – This is a law that focuses on website accessibility. Your website must be accessible to ALL users, including people with hearing or visual impairments. (This ADA Bundle makes that super easy.)
- Plagiarism and copyright notices (recommended)

Security (https)

Compliance with Anti-SPAM laws

Content attribution and licensing

These legal requirements protect you from expensive lawsuits and fines.

You can purchase one of our legal bundles to easily create ALL the legal pages you need. They already include the necessary clauses and legalese.

What legal pages does a website need?

I wrote a whole blog post on website legal pages here.

Whether you have an established or new website, there are certain legal pages EVERY website needs, and some you could greatly benefit from, including:

Terms and conditions
Disclaimers
Privacy Policy
A cookies policy (this is already included in our legal bundles as a bonus for free)
An accessibility statement

How do I make sure my website is legal?

Following the legal tips above will certainly ensure your website is legal.

But get complete peace of mind with my website legal audit service here.

See how much my customers love this website legal audit:

Final Thoughts on Website Legal Requirements

Now you know the requirements for a website.

Large companies and small businesses alike must meet these website legal requirements.

Making sure your small business has the right legal protection in place is more than just a good idea—it’s essential.

By following best practices and covering all your legal bases, you’re not only protecting your business from potential issues but also building trust with your audience.

Taking these proactive steps helps ensure that your small business is set up for success, both now and in the future. After all, a little effort today can save you a lot of trouble down the road.

Make sure to grab one of my legal bundles to make your website legal in as little as 15 minutes!

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