Description
These are simple website terms of use that may be used for a website that describes a business and the team behind the business.
If the website has additional purposes, e.g. services or products are sold or supplied via the website (e.g. downloadable apps), or the website has a public noticeboard/forum where people can post comments and other material, different or additional terms will be required to address the risks for those additional purposes.
If you expand these terms to provide for different purposes, you will need to consider the impact of the unfair contract terms regime under the Fair Trading Act 1986. This regime comes into force on 17 March 2015, applies to all standard form consumer contracts entered into after that date, and enables the Commerce Commission to obtain a declaration that a term of the contract is unfair. If this happens, no person may apply, enforce or rely on that term.
Because a person reading or using the website (end user) will not actively agree to these terms (unlike the traditional form of contract where both parties sign it), you will need to ensure the end user’s acceptance can be evidenced. To do this, we suggest that the link to the terms is displayed in a prominent place on the home page and other pages of the website. Many sites display a link at the base of each page, alongside corporate information about the business. Where you have additional purposes for the website and seek to extend these terms to cover those purposes, you should consider a more active form of acceptance by the end user, e.g. if something is downloaded, before the download can occur, the end user should actively agree to the terms, e.g. by clicking on an I agree button (or similar). In this case, the page requiring the end user’s agreement should set out the terms of use or have a prominent link to those terms.
The terms also include references to setting up an account. The user accounts contemplated are limited to a visitor setting up an account to access password-protected areas of the site, or to register for further updates from the website.
