The law for trust in the digital economy (LCEN) of June 21, 2004, requires any publicly accessible website to display legal notices. This obligation applies to both professional sites and personal blogs as long as they are open to internet users.
Digital accessibility and legal notices: an often-overlooked obligation
Competing articles address legal notices from the classic angle: identification of the publisher, contact details of the host, personal data. However, one aspect remains under-documented: the obligations related to digital accessibility, which also require specific mentions on the site.
Two regimes coexist in French law, and confusing them exposes one to compliance errors. The first stems from Article 47 of the law of February 11, 2005: it targets public organizations, public service delegates, and very large companies. The second comes from the transposition of the European directive 2019/882, known as the European Accessibility Act, which targets private e-commerce services aimed at consumers, with an exemption for micro-enterprises providing services.
For entities subject to Article 47, publishing an accessibility statement is a separate obligation from the classic legal notices. This statement specifies the level of compliance with the RGAA (General Reference for Improving Accessibility), any possible exemptions, and a means of contact to report an accessibility defect. Some sites confuse this statement with the legal notice page, whereas they are two separate documents with different contents.
An e-commerce site subject to the European Accessibility Act must document the compliance of its user journeys. Field feedback varies on the level of detail expected by the DGCCRF inspections, but the trend is towards increasing demands.
Mandatory legal notices according to the legal status of the site
The exact content of the legal notices varies depending on whether the publisher of the site is an individual, a company, or a sole trader. As shown by the official Bordel de Nerd page, the formatting can remain simple while covering all the information required by law.
For a sole trader, the following information must appear on the site:
- Name, first name, and address, accompanied by the mention “sole trader” or the initials “EI”
- Registration number with the RCS, email address, and contact phone number
- VAT identification number
- Identity of the site host: name or company name, address, and phone number
For a company (SARL, SAS, SA), the company name, legal form, amount of share capital, and registered office address must also be included. Regulated activities impose additional mentions: reference to applicable professional rules, name of the authority that granted the operating license, and if applicable, the professional title and the state in which it was granted.
Sanctions for the absence of legal notices on a website
The lack of legal notices is not a mere administrative oversight. The sanctions provided by the LCEN can reach one year of imprisonment and a fine for individuals. For legal entities, the amount of the fine is multiplied by five.
In practice, criminal prosecutions for the absence of legal notices remain rare. The available data does not allow for conclusions about the actual frequency of convictions. However, the absence of notices can serve as an aggravating factor in a commercial dispute or a complaint for misleading commercial practices.
The most concrete risk for a professional site is the loss of visitor trust. An internet user who cannot find a legal notice page or who notices incomplete information may legitimately doubt the seriousness of the business. For an e-commerce site, this directly translates into a higher cart abandonment rate.
Legal notices and personal data: two distinct pages
The privacy policy does not replace the legal notices, and vice versa. The former meets the requirements of the GDPR (purposes of collection, legal basis for processing, rights of individuals, retention period). The latter identifies the publisher and the host of the site.
Some publishers merge the two into a single page. Nothing formally prohibits this, but this practice complicates reading and increases the risk of omission. Separating the two documents remains the most readable solution for internet users as well as for compliance checks.
Writing compliant legal notices: technical pitfalls
Writing legal notices seems simple on paper. A few fields to fill out, a link in the footer, and it’s done. The reality is more nuanced.
- The identity of the host must include its phone number, information that several hosts do not make easily accessible on their own site
- The VAT identification number must be up to date, including after a change in tax regime (for example, moving to VAT exemption)
- Sites using cookies or trackers must mention the purposes of collection and the legal basis for processing, which also falls under CNIL compliance
Updating the legal notices after each change in status or host remains the most neglected reflex. A move of registered office, a change in legal form, or migration to a new host is enough to render the page obsolete.
For online sales sites, the legal notices must coexist with the general terms and conditions of sale (GTC). The GTC detail the ordering, delivery, withdrawal, and dispute resolution procedures. Confusing legal notices and GTC exposes one to non-compliance on both fronts.
The compliance of a website is not just about ticking a list. Between the framework of the LCEN, the obligations of the GDPR, and the new digital accessibility requirements stemming from the European directive 2019/882, each legal page of the site responds to a different piece of legislation. Checking the coherence of the whole after each structural modification of the site remains the only reliable method to avoid blind spots.
