Terms and conditions outline what users can and cannot do with your website, products, and services. They lay out the rules to protect you in case of misuse and enable you to take action if it becomes necessary.
It’s also referred to by other names such as terms of service (ToS) and terms of use (ToU). Even though they have different names, in fact – there is no difference. Any of these three terms (sometimes even referred to as user agreement) basically refer to the same document.
It is your website, therefore you can decide how it should be used.
It is common to see terms and conditions which include a list of prohibitions or general guidelines to be followed by users. These can be broad, such as stating that your services are not to be used for illegal or unlawful purposes or that users must not try to breach or test the vulnerability of your network or circumvent security measures.
If your platform is collaborative, meaning users are invited to share such as on a social media network, you could have a separate page with community guidelines, which you could link to in that clause.
While having an intellectual property clause won’t guarantee that someone won’t copy your work, it can certainly act as a good deterrent.
It also helps having a copyright notice that confirms and warns your users that the content on your website is yours and is not to be reproduced or re-used without your express permission. It re-affirms that you hold trademarks and ownership over certain elements of the website itself and over the products that you sell and should be a no-brainer.
If you sell products online, you may wish to state that while you do your best to ensure that descriptions are accurate and colors adequately represented. You cannot be held responsible should there be discrepancies in size, shape, or colors with the products received by the customer as their computers may simply have been showing them differently.
The same goes for product availability. You could state that while you aim to ensure that a product for sale is in stock, you won’t be held liable if there was a mistake and a product is sold out, in which case you reserve the right to cancel their order.
Limitation of liability disclaimers is one of the main reasons why business owners take the time to include terms and conditions on their websites. When reasonable and drafted adequately, such clauses can help protect your business against claims and lawsuits and limit the amount of money that you would have to pay in damages.
While you cannot exclude your liability for just anything and everything, you could, for example, state that you will not be held liable should your users not be able to use your website or your product. This is important, especially if you offer a service or platform on which businesses rely on in order to operate.