Website Terms & Conditions

A website without Terms & Conditions is an open invitation for disputes about intellectual property ownership, liability for content, user obligations, and what law governs any dispute. South African courts will fill the gaps often not in your favour. Worse, the absence of T&Cs means your website's content, branding, and code have no contractual protection against use by competitors or scraping by third parties.

These Website Terms & Conditions are drafted for South African law and cover: the basis on which visitors may access your website (licence to access, not ownership), intellectual property ownership and restrictions (no copying, scraping, or redistribution), acceptable use and prohibited conduct, user-generated content (if applicable), limitation of liability for website downtime, third-party links, and inaccuracy in content, disclaimers aligned with CPA section 49 required notice standards, and the governing law and jurisdiction clause (South African courts, South African law).

The T&Cs address ECTA section 43 electronic commerce obligations for websites that facilitate online transactions: the required pre-transaction disclosures, the right of cancellation under ECTA section 44, and the supplier's obligations on order confirmation. An e-commerce specific module is included as an optional section.

Cooling-off rights under the CPA (section 16) and the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act interaction are both addressed, critical for direct marketing and subscription services.