Every website accessible to the public in France must display legal notices. This requirement, established by the French Law on Confidence in the Digital Economy (LCEN) of 21 June 2004, applies to showcase websites, online stores, professional blogs and web applications alike. The exact content of these notices varies according to the publisher’s legal status and business activity, but failing to display them can result in criminal penalties.
Legal notices and pre-contractual information: a common source of confusion on e-commerce websites
One issue rarely covered by standard guides is the distinction between legal notices and pre-contractual information. On a website that sells online, the company’s contact details and the hosting provider’s identity do not replace the information that must be provided before each purchase: product characteristics, total price, delivery terms and the right of withdrawal.
Putting everything on a single “Legal notices” page does not make an online store compliant. Pre-contractual information must be accessible at the time of purchase, not buried in a footer link. Confusing the two creates a double risk: penalties for missing legal notices on the one hand, and failure to meet consumer information requirements on the other.
To see how an agency structures this page on its own website, the legal notices on the Digital Breizh website provide a practical example of how to present these separate obligations.
Identifying the publisher: what the LCEN requires for each legal status
The LCEN distinguishes between two categories of professional publishers, each subject to different requirements.
For a natural person (sole proprietorship or micro-enterprise), the legal notices must include their first and last name, registered business address, email address and telephone number. Depending on the business activity, registration with the Trade and Companies Register (RCS) or the Trades Register (RM) is also required.
For a legal entity (SARL, SAS, SA), the company name, legal form and share capital must also be provided. The address must be that of the registered office. The identification number (SIREN or SIRET) and, where applicable, the intra-Community VAT number complete the required information.
In both cases, the name of the publication director must appear on the website. This detail is often overlooked, even though the person named is responsible for the site’s editorial content.
Regulated professions and activities requiring authorisation
Professionals in regulated fields (lawyers, architects and chartered accountants) must name the professional body or authority they belong to, as well as the rules governing their activity. For activities requiring administrative authorisation, the name and contact details of the authority that issued it must be provided.
Hosting, cookies and personal data: three separate obligations that should not be combined
Legal notices must include the identity of the website’s hosting provider: its company name, address and telephone number. This information allows third parties to request the removal of illegal content.
Cookie management and the collection of personal data are governed by different legislation (the GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive), but many websites treat them as a simple extra paragraph in their legal notices.
- Cookies that are not essential to the website’s operation require the user’s explicit consent, given through a positive action. The CNIL points out that simply continuing to browse does not constitute valid consent.
- Information about the personal data collected (purpose, legal basis, retention period and recipients) must be provided separately and be easy to access, usually through a dedicated privacy policy.
- The cookie banner and consent mechanism must work independently of the legal notices page: adding a sentence about trackers to the legal notices is not enough.
Treating these three areas as a single block makes the page difficult to read and results in only partial legal compliance—one that will not withstand an inspection.
Penalties for missing legal notices: the risks for website publishers
Failure to comply with the LCEN’s legal notice requirements can result in criminal penalties. These may include a fine and, in the most serious cases, a prison sentence.
These maximum penalties are rarely imposed in practice, but formal notices from the DGCCRF (Directorate General for Competition Policy, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control) are more common than many people think, particularly during targeted inspections of e-commerce websites.
Platforms and the Digital Services Act
Businesses that sell through a marketplace are also affected. The Digital Services Act requires platforms to collect and verify the identification details of professionals offering products or services. It is therefore important to check that the information on a business’s own website matches what is displayed on the platform.
Professionals whose details differ between their website and the marketplace where they sell may be asked by the platform to clarify the discrepancy, or even have their seller account suspended.
Legal notices are not a box-ticking exercise to leave until the end of a web project. They form a legal foundation whose content varies according to the business’s legal status, activity and sales channels. Checking that they are accurate whenever the registered office, legal form or hosting provider changes is the simplest way to avoid a formal warning.
