T&Cs and Terms of Use for digital and cyber businesses
You are an IT service provider, SaaS publisher or cybersecurity actor. Your general terms and conditions frame your liability, define your commitments and determine your position in the event of a dispute. Standard documents leave risks that you do not always measure.
The firm's services
T&Cs / Terms of Use Audit
We examine the enforceability of your documents, their compliance with consumer law and digital law. We identify fragile clauses, inconsistencies and discrepancies with your commercial commitments, drawing on direct experience in IT litigation.
Drafting T&Cs and General Service Conditions
We draft bespoke general terms of sale or service, adapted to your actual business. Order terms, payment, deadlines, legal and contractual warranties: each document is designed to be solid in the event of a dispute.
Drafting Terms of Use
We draft your terms of use: access rules, intellectual property, user liability, moderation, account suspension, content management. Calibrated depending on whether you address professionals or consumers.
Privacy Policy
We draft your privacy policy taking into account your exact role in data processing, your subcontracting chain, the third-party tools used and consistency with your DPA and internal documentation.
GDPR Compliance
We integrate GDPR provisions directly into your existing documents or during a complete overhaul, taking into account your role, data flows, retention periods and consistency with your internal documentation.
Litigation
We assist and represent SMEs and mid-sized companies when their general terms and conditions are challenged: payment refusal, liability claims, dispute over contractual scope, enforceability challenged.
Standard T&Cs are insufficient against cyber risk
For digital and cybersecurity actors, general terms of sale and use do not merely frame a transaction. They legally define each party's role, their obligations and the resulting liability. Generic drafting exposes your company to risks you do not always measure.
administrative fines issued in 2024 for breaches of commercial rules
Source: DGCCRF, 2024 report
maximum fine for failure to communicate T&Cs to a professional buyer
Art. L.441-1 C. com.
statutory withdrawal period applicable to distance contracts
Art. L.221-18 C. conso.
Structuring your T&Cs/Terms of Use is strategically critical if you:
Risks of generic drafting for a cyber actor:
T&Cs and cyber insurance: two documents that must align
Insurance covers within the limits of the policy. Your general terms and conditions must be built to frame residual risks and address what your cyber insurance policy excludes, caps or conditions. An inconsistency between the two documents can leave areas of liability entirely at your expense.
Essential clauses in T&Cs and Terms of Use
Non-personalised or poorly structured general terms do not protect the company. It is the clauses themselves, their legal wording and their acceptance mechanism that determine whether they will be enforceable and useful when you need them.
Enforceability and acceptance
T&Cs, General Service Conditions and Terms of Use are only enforceable if brought to the client's attention before the contract is concluded and explicitly accepted. How clients acknowledge and accept your terms determines their effectiveness.
Financial terms
Price, indexation, subscriptions, payment terms, late payment interest, suspension for non-payment, ancillary fees: these clauses must be aligned with your actual commercial practice.
Personal data
Role analysis to determine whether you act as data controller, processor or joint controller, in order to define which provisions must appear in your documents.
Termination, suspension, reversibility
These clauses determine the quality of your contract exit and your ability to maintain control of the commercial relationship in the event of a dispute, non-payment or end of subscription.
Liability limitation (B2B)
Liability capping clauses are valid in B2B under certain legal conditions. Cap, exclusions, indirect damages, articulation with the best-efforts obligation, exonerating causes: these must be calibrated to your risk exposure.
Applicable law and jurisdiction (B2B)
Applicable law must be defined for international business. In B2B, parties may freely choose the competent jurisdiction provided the jurisdiction clause is very prominent in the document.
Legal and contractual warranties (B2C)
Since 2022, the legal warranty of conformity also covers digital content and services. Its articulation with the warranty against hidden defects must be explicitly addressed in the general terms.
Withdrawal and refund (B2C)
The 14-day right of withdrawal applies to distance contracts. Clauses must specify the start of the period, the procedure to follow and refund terms. Otherwise, the withdrawal period does not begin to run.
Consumer mediator (B2C)
Where your business falls within consumer law, information about the competent mediator must be integrated clearly and consistently with the rest of your documentation.
Why choose EMPREINTE Avocats for your T&Cs and Terms of Use
EMPREINTE Avocats works exclusively in digital law and cybersecurity. This specialisation gives each intervention legal coherence grounded in genuine field experience, both IT litigation and cyber disputes. We draft general terms that are compliant and strategically useful.
Exclusive cyber expertise
We know the real contractual risks faced by cyber and digital actors. Each clause is framed to limit your exposure and clarify your commitments.
Litigation experience
Knowing what happens when T&Cs or Terms of Use are challenged allows us to draft them differently from the outset. We know how documents are read by a court.
Documentary consistency
We ensure consistency between your T&Cs/Terms of Use, your DPA, your privacy policy and your commercial documentation, to avoid your documents contradicting one another.
Insurance articulation
We draft your general terms taking into account your insurance coverage to contractually address the risks your policy excludes, caps or conditions.
Our drafting method for T&Cs and Terms of Use
A structured method to produce compliant, readable, enforceable documents consistent with your actual business.
Analysis of your business
We take into account your offering, business model, target clients, sales cycles, insurance coverage and technical environment. We also analyse your commercial commitments, existing documentation and the dependencies that influence your contractual exposure.
Contractual risk audit
We identify missing, inconsistent or overly exposing clauses in your current documentation and ask you questions to identify the usual friction areas with your clients.
Drafting or overhaul
We draft bespoke T&Cs, structured to comply with your obligations, readable, enforceable and useful in the event of a dispute.
Adjustments with your teams
We incorporate, where needed, feedback from business, sales, product, compliance or management teams to ensure alignment between your documents and your operational reality.
Delivery and integration recommendations
You receive a finalised version along with concrete recommendations on the acceptance mechanism and documentary consistency. We draw your attention to the points to watch at go-live, contract execution and proof-of-consent archiving.
Frequently asked questions about T&Cs and Terms of Use
Our firm's answers to the most common questions about general terms of sale and use.