Legal link

v1.0

A link that directs users to legally required or relevant legal information, such as terms of service, policies, disclaimers, or copyright notices. These links help ensure compliance with laws and regulations while informing users of their rights and obligations.

Considerations

Hierarchy

In the user journey, we use visual elements like space, size, depth, and color to efficiently guide users to the most relevant next steps.   Color is especially useful for way-finding. We use blue to draw users attention to primary actions.

Contemporary

eBay is particularly vulnerable to the perception of being outdated and irrelevant, largely influenced by how we present ourselves in our product. By adopting the latest UI and UX industry standards, we challenge this perception and ultimately build trust with our users.

Evo is a personification of modernity, is industry standard and has been thoroughly user tested.

Placement

Legal links should be placed where users expect them (e.g., website footer, account creation, near relevant interactive elements). The surrounding context should clearly indicate the link's purpose.

Usage guidelines

When to use

Footer – Standard placement for policies like Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, and Return Policy.
Checkout – Include links to Terms & Conditions and Refund Policies before customers finalize purchases.
Account Registration/Login Pages – Link to Privacy Policy and Terms of Service where users provide personal data.
Product Pages – If there are specific disclaimers (e.g., warranties, safety information, or age restrictions).
Cart – Clearly show legal policies related to payments, refunds, and shipping.
Email & Pop-ups for Data Collection – Link to Privacy Policy when collecting emails or personal information.
Subscription & Membership Sign-ups – Include Terms of Use and Cancellation Policies before customers commit.
Policy pages - In general when linking out to any internal policy pages.

Text links vs Legal links

Both are links, but the main difference is that legal links navigate to legal-specific content, while text links are used for product-based surfaces. 
For further assistance determining if a specific link requires the legal link pattern reach out to the Regulatory design team.  Regulatory office hours sign up

Anatomy

Text
Underline

Elements

Appearance

To ensure modernity, heuristic accuracy, and legal compliance, the legal shade of blue is distinct from primary action blue. This allows legal links to maintain the right visual hierarchy, feel contemporary, and meet compliance standards.

This specific style provides adequate affordance without hindering the user's primary tasks. For additional clarity the underline appearance should use skip ink style.

When a legal link is used in a group of other links, apply the legal style to all.

Color

Legal links must use the specific legal link color on standard light and dark theme backgrounds (Foreground/Link/Legal). See Color tokens for details.

Icon

Icons grouped with legal links should match the link color. Examples are program badges paired with legal links.

Background

Color exception: Links placed on backgrounds using our expanded color palette should use the coordinating foreground color to match. This ensures we meet WCAG’s 4.5:1 ratio standard for AA contrast. See Accessibility foundations for more info.

A marketing banner with a legal link under the call to action. The legal link matches the blue color theme.

Size

Legal links inherit their size and styling from the content around them.

State

Text links use state layers for interaction states. The available states are enabled, hover, focused, visited, and disabled. Learn more about the state layer color values in Color tokens.