Website Terms of Use - E-Commerce Sale of Digital Content (B2C)
These E-Commerce Sale of Digital Content Website Terms of Use are designed for online retailers providing digital content to consumers through an e-commerce website.
They regulate use of the website itself and are intended to be used alongside a separate set of sale terms for the digital content supplied through the site. For that reason, this template should be used with Digital Content Terms of Sale (B2C).
You may also need a Website Privacy Policies template and a Cookie Policy where your website collects personal data or uses cookies.
Please Note: This template, together with the counterpart terms of sale, replaces the previous TR.WEB.TC.06 and TR.WEB.TC.07 templates, formerly known as ‘Information Provider’ terms and conditions. Now referring to ‘digital content’, these terms remain applicable to websites providing information but can now also be applied to a broad range of other digital content.
Use these terms to govern access to your digital content website
These Terms of Use are designed for acceptance through use, so users are deemed to accept them when they visit the website. Optional wording also allows acceptance as part of the website sign-up process.
They include key information about the website operator, such as company registration details, trading address, and any relevant regulatory bodies or associations. For some trades and professions, further information may be required, and those in regulated professions should take professional advice.
Website protection, user rights, and digital content-specific risks
This document has been updated to include a clause prohibiting scraping and text and data mining, including practices commonly used in the development and training of AI models. The clause is intended to make such activity a direct breach of the terms of use, although technical measures are also recommended to help protect website content.
The intellectual property provisions protect copyright and other rights while taking a relatively practical approach to modern online use. Rather than relying on overly restrictive drafting, the template takes a more realistic position on enforceability and recognises that technical controls may also be useful.
The template also takes a pragmatic approach to website linking. Deep linking may be permitted or prohibited depending on the option selected, but the terms do not attempt to prevent linking from sites outside a user’s full control. Instead, restrictions focus on links from sites containing mainly unlawful or unsavoury material.
What these terms deal with
- access to the site and user accounts;
- intellectual property and user-generated content;
- scraping, text and data mining, and website security;
- linking, disclaimers, and limits on liability; and
- privacy, cookies, data protection, marketing communications, and governing law.
Limits of the template
The disclaimers and liability provisions are intended to protect the website operator to the maximum extent considered reasonable, but they should not be made excessively harsh, particularly where users are consumers, or they may risk being considered unfair.
Those provisions relate only to use of the website itself. They do not govern the sale of the digital content, which should be addressed in the separate terms of sale.
Website Terms of Use - E-Commerce Sale of Digital Content (B2C) is part of Business . Just £38.50 + VAT provides unlimited downloads from Business for 1 year.