Website Legal Compliance: What You’re Missing

When you launch a new site, it’s easy to obsess over visuals, page speed, and fancy features. Yet the part that can hurt most—financially and reputationally—is website legal compliance. From privacy regulations to accessibility standards and copyright concerns, missing the mark can lead to fines, lawsuits, and serious damage to your reputation.

In this article, we’ll break down the core legal areas every website owner needs to understand—and offer clear steps to help you stay protected and accountable.

The Importance of Website Legal Compliance

Website legal compliance refers to the set of laws and regulations that govern how websites must operate. This includes how personal data is collected, stored, and shared, how accessible your site is to users with disabilities, and how you handle intellectual property.

Staying aligned with today’s legal standards shows that your site is built with care and intention. It reflects a clear understanding of your users’ needs, the expectations of regulatory bodies, and the broader responsibility that comes with running an online business. In practice, legal compliance supports everything from user trust to operational stability.

The Rules Are Constantly Evolving

Unfortunately, keeping up with these responsibilities isn’t always straightforward. Legal standards on the web are constantly shifting—what’s acceptable today might fall short tomorrow. New laws roll out, existing ones evolve, and enforcement becomes more active.

Global data privacy regulations like the GDPR, state-level laws such as California’s CCPA and CPRA, and evolving accessibility standards like WCAG 2.2 introduce new layers of responsibility. These shifts—each with their own nuances and timelines—make it clear that staying compliant isn’t something you do once and forget.

It takes ongoing attention, flexibility, and collaboration across your digital team to keep everything aligned. Approaching compliance with intention—rather than waiting until something goes wrong—helps keep your site stable and your risk low.

Key Areas of Website Legal Compliance

As legal requirements continue to evolve, it helps to understand where your responsibilities fall. Legal compliance spans a wide range of areas—from how you handle user data to the specific regulations that apply to your industry. Breaking it down into manageable parts can make the process feel more focused and achievable.

Data Privacy & Protection

Data privacy is all about respecting and protecting the personal information people share when they visit your website—things like names, email addresses, IP addresses, and browsing activity. It gives individuals the right to understand how their data is used, and the ability to make informed choices about it. This includes having the power to access their information, correct it, or even ask for it to be deleted.

To support these rights, many countries have passed specific laws that set clear rules for how businesses must collect, handle, and share personal data. These laws apply even if your business is located in a different region, as long as you serve users in those areas. Key examples include:

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): Governs data protection in the European Union. It applies to any business—no matter where it’s located—that collects or processes data from EU residents.
California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA): Grants California residents the right to know what personal data is collected, request deletion, and opt out of data sales.
California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA): Requires commercial websites and online services that collect personal data from California residents to post a clear privacy policy.
Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA): Canada’s primary privacy law for private-sector organizations, outlining rules for obtaining meaningful consent and handling personal information responsibly.

These laws are designed to protect users’ privacy, and they often apply based on where your users are—not where your business is. If your website serves visitors in these regions, you’re likely required to comply.

Where to Start

If you’re aiming to meet data privacy requirements, begin with a few foundational steps:

Post a privacy policy that’s easy to understand and up to date.
Use a cookie banner that explains what’s being collected and why.
Allow users to access, correct, or delete their personal information.
Confirm your third-party vendors handle data responsibly.

You may also need to address specific regulations, such as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) if your site collects data from children, or the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTC) if your business operates in the U.S.

Accessibility

Your website should work for everyone—not just some visitors. Web accessibility means designing your site so that people with disabilities can use it without barriers. This includes individuals with vision, hearing, mobility, and cognitive differences. Making your website accessible isn’t just considerate—it’s often required by law.

Here are some of the key legal frameworks that shape web accessibility standards:

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): A U.S. civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities. While the ADA doesn’t specifically name websites, courts have increasingly ruled that business websites—especially those tied to physical storefronts—must be accessible.
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act: Requires federal agencies and organizations receiving federal funding in the U.S. to ensure their websites and digital services are accessible to people with disabilities.
Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA): A Canadian law that sets mandatory accessibility standards for public and private sector websites in Ontario.
California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act: A state law that guarantees equal access to all business services, and has been used to support lawsuits demanding website accessibility.

All of these laws reinforce the same idea: digital spaces should be usable by everyone. And they’re pushing more businesses to treat accessibility as essential—not optional.

Meeting Technical Standards

Legal requirements are one side of the equation—making them work on your site is the other. Once you’ve wrapped your head around the laws, the next step is applying them in a way that actually works for your users and your team.

The most widely recognized framework for building accessible websites is provided by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Aiming for WCAG 2.1 Level AA conformance is a strong, practical target. That includes steps like:

Making your site usable with a keyboard
Adding alt text to meaningful images
Providing captions for video content
Using clear structure and strong color contrast

Implementation: Turning Website Legal Compliance Into Culture

Run an Audit

Start by evaluating where you stand:

Map how personal data flows through your site
Check for accessibility barriers
Review cookies, plugins, and integrations
Document areas for improvement and assign owners

Audits give you clarity and a foundation for action.

Update Your Policies

Maintain clear, accessible documentation:

Privacy Policy
Cookie Policy
Terms of Service
Accessibility Statement

Avoid legal jargon. Update your policies annually or when regulations change. Place them in visible locations, like your website footer.

Train Your Team

Website legal compliance isn’t a solo task. Everyone on your team plays a role:

Developers ensure systems protect data
Designers build with accessibility in mind
Marketers follow consent rules and maintain transparency

Create a shared checklist and offer periodic training to keep everyone aligned.

Maintain Ongoing Vigilance

Schedule quarterly audits
Monitor legal updates from reliable sources
Log and address user complaints promptly
Track progress on accessibility improvements

This approach transforms compliance from a one-time task into an ongoing priority.

Feature an Accessibility Statement

A good accessibility statement provides:

Your current conformance level (e.g., WCAG 2.1 AA)
A summary of known issues and planned improvements
Contact information for feedback

Publishing a statement makes your efforts visible and invites accountability.

Future-Proof Your Website

Website legal compliance doesn’t happen all at once. It’s woven into how you build, update, and maintain your site over time. From protecting data to improving accessibility, every improvement you make is part of a broader commitment—to your users, to your business, and to doing things right.

There’s no shortcut, and that’s okay. The point isn’t perfection—it’s consistency. Staying informed, making thoughtful updates, and involving your team means you’re building a foundation that can grow with your business, not against it.

If you’re unsure where to start or need help making sense of it all, 216digital is here. Let’s talk through your next steps in a quick ADA briefing—no pressure, just practical guidance to help you move forward with clarity.