Online Shops under German law

A legally-safe and also warning-free design of an Online Shop / Web-shop is almost impossible because of the large amount of legal provisions which change almost daily due to new jurisprudence or legislations. This applies, for example, in the regulation regarding misleading hazards. When there is such a risk of confusion in the course of an order process or in the labelling of goods and services, many courts answer differently.

Each shop should be professionally examined before the real-time operation in detail. This must be a full inspection. The following legal aspects should at least be observed and examined by a legal expert:

  • Precise and comprehensive description of individual services (pay attention to all the product-specific regulations);
  • Images, texts, media and other particular contents used for the online shop has to be free from other parties protective rights or similar;
  • Exhaustive IT-Privacy Statement (no Cookies, IP-storage address, Newsletters, data minimization);
  • IT- Protection of data has to be observed (encryption of the most sensitive data, secure passwords);
  • Precise pricing and delivery costs;
  • Ordering process transparently designed (Presentation of the necessary steps, correction and completion chances, precise payment options);
  • Comprehensive revocation and return instructions;
  • Terms and Conditions has to be examined by a professional (do NOT copy GTC from others);
  • Purchase-button has to be correctly formulated;
  • Confirmation e-mail;
  • Obligation to provide a masthead (Imprint).