Published policies
Website terms
In the libraryThe door has this paper. Type its name at the composer. It offers to start from it.
The rules of your site or app, addressed to the people using it: what they may do with it, what you are promising, and what happens if either of you walks away. Written to be published rather than sent to one person. It usually covers accounts, acceptable behaviour, content people upload, what the operator may remove, disclaimers, and how the terms themselves may change.
- Printed on the page as
- Website Terms of Use
- Where it can live
- Any of the 184 governing laws
Who uses one
- Anyone running a website, app or online service open to the public.
- Companies with user accounts, uploads or community features.
- Businesses whose product is used before any contract is signed.
What you are deciding
- Who may use the service, and from what age
- How the terms are accepted
- What users may and may not do
- What happens to content users upload, and who owns it
- What the operator may remove or suspend, and why
- What is promised about availability, and what is not
- How the terms may change, and how users are told
- Which legal system governs them
Blanks you leave stay blank and wait in the room. Nothing is filled in from a guess.
The sections a draft usually has
- 1Who these terms are between
- 2Acceptance
- 3Accounts and eligibility
- 4Acceptable use
- 5User content
- 6Intellectual property
- 7Suspension and termination
- 8Disclaimers
- 9Limits on liability
- 10Changes and governing law
A general outline, not a required one. What turns up in a draft follows what you described. A contract is written in the order a contract is read.
What people call it
Type any of these at the door. It offers this paper. The matching happens in your own browser, on a wordlist you could read. No model runs before you sign in.
- terms of use
- terms of service
- website terms
- site terms
- user terms
Questions people ask
- Are website terms and a privacy policy the same document?
- No. Terms set the rules of using the service; a privacy policy explains what is done with personal information. They are usually published as two separate pages that link to each other.
- Do users have to click to accept?
- It depends on what the terms are trying to do. Terms that impose real obligations are on stronger ground where the user actively agreed than where a link sat in the footer.
- Can terms of use be changed later?
- Most say how: notice, a posted date, and sometimes continued use counting as acceptance. How far that works for existing users varies by legal system, particularly for consumers.
General answers about the document. Not advice about your situation. Not written about any one country.
Where it lives
A contract names the legal system it is governed by. That is a separate decision from which paper it is. You pick it at the door, from any of the 184 units in Governing law, including England and Wales, Delaware, California and New York.
Say what you agreed in one sentence. When what you describe is website terms, the door offers this paper. One press takes it. One press refuses it.
Start it at the door →Related kinds