Terms of Service and Privacy Policy pages exist and are linked from the footer

For an online Terms of Service to be enforceable against a user, US courts require that the link to the terms be reasonably conspicuous at the point of assent — Nguyen v Barnes & Noble, Inc. (9th Cir. 2014) threw out arbitration because a footer-only "Terms of Use" link with no direct prompt was held insufficient, and Meyer v Uber (2d Cir. 2017) spelled out the visibility and placement requirements that have been applied ever since. A missing Terms link means your liability caps, arbitration clause, and choice-of-law provisions are likely unenforceable in a dispute. Apple App Store, Google Play Store, Stripe activation, Google OAuth verification, and Meta login all additionally require a public-facing Privacy Policy URL — apps without one get rejected, de-listed, or blocked from going live. AI coding tools reliably scaffold app/page.tsx and a CTA button, then skip app/terms/page.tsx and app/privacy/page.tsx entirely, or leave the routes as 404 stubs that never got written.

Create both pages and link them from the footer. Templates live at termly.io, gdpr.eu, and GitHub's docs/terms repos.

// components/Footer.tsx
<footer>
  <Link href="/privacy">Privacy Policy</Link>
  <Link href="/terms">Terms of Service</Link>
</footer>

Files: app/privacy/page.tsx and app/terms/page.tsx (or pages/privacy.tsx / pages/terms.tsx for pages router). Deeper coverage of policy-content completeness, version-change notification, and jurisdiction-specific clauses lives in the legal-pages-compliance Pro audit.

• ID: project-snapshot.legal.terms-and-privacy-linked-from-footer
• Severity: medium
• What to look for: Two independent artifacts. (a) File existence: Privacy Policy at app/privacy/page.tsx, app/privacy-policy/page.tsx, app/(marketing)/privacy/page.tsx, app/legal/privacy/page.tsx, pages/privacy.tsx, public/privacy.html — or equivalent. Terms of Service at app/terms/page.tsx, app/terms-of-service/page.tsx, app/tos/page.tsx, pages/terms.tsx, pages/tos.tsx, public/terms.html. (b) Footer linking: inspect app/layout.tsx, components/Footer.tsx, components/site-footer.tsx, any component matching /footer/i. Look for <Link href="/privacy"> / <a href="/privacy"> (and /terms). Link text can be "Privacy Policy", "Terms", "Legal" — the href must point at the actual route.
• Pass criteria: Both page files exist AND the footer links to both routes.
• Fail criteria: One or both files missing, OR both exist but one/both not linked from the footer. Stub body (<p>Coming soon</p>, fewer than 100 words) does NOT count as an existing page. Footer linking only one of the two does NOT pass.
• Skip (N/A) when: Non-user-facing CLI, library, or API-only service. Quote: "No public web surface (project type: CLI|library|API)".
• Before evaluating, quote: Each page-file path found + each footer link JSX line. If any piece is missing, state which.
• Report even on pass: "Privacy: <path>; Terms: <path>; footer links at <file>:<lines>".
• Detail on fail: "app/privacy/page.tsx exists but app/terms/page.tsx missing; only privacy linked in components/Footer.tsx:24".
• Remediation:

  // components/Footer.tsx
  <Link href="/privacy">Privacy Policy</Link>
  <Link href="/terms">Terms of Service</Link>
  

  Files: app/privacy/page.tsx, app/terms/page.tsx. Templates at termly.io / gdpr.eu. Deeper coverage lives in legal-pages-compliance.