Could Your Website Get You Sued? What to Ask Your Designer ☕

Oct 14

This is my experience and not legal advice.

I own a web agency in Jacksonville. Grab a coffee ☕ Maybe something stronger. I want to tell you about a nightmare one of my clients just lived through, because it could happen to you.

I thought a tool would make my clients compliant. I chose one and it was running. Done. I was misinformed. Then a lawsuit hit one of them and I learned how costly the wrong systems can be 🤦‍♀️

It came out of nowhere 😳

Nobody saw it coming. One day my client was running her business. The next day she was a defendant.

She chose to settle. The amount would badly hurt most small businesses. Then she was told the plaintiff would scan her site again after the settlement. If they found even one issue they could sue her again. The audacity! 😤 Read that twice. It felt like being put on a watch list.

A real example from Central Florida 📰

In August 2026 a Miami man sued a Central Florida dermatology practice in small claims court. He said its website used third-party tracking tools without first getting his consent. He asked for up to $8,000 plus attorney fees. The practice settled. The terms were not made public and a settlement is not a finding that it broke the law. Read the full story in The Apopka Chief.

It was one of at least 150 similar suits filed against Florida businesses. One clinic that was sued has countersued and calls the suits a shakedown. A University of Florida privacy law professor said the claim turns a technical issue most of us take for granted into a threat for small businesses. The plaintiff’s attorneys say people have a right to expect businesses to protect their online privacy.

A separate WPBF investigation, as reported by Hoodline, found more than 160 lawsuits since July 2025 from one plaintiff over website chat pop-ups. Most ended before trial. Cookies, pixels and chat tools are all on the menu 🍽️

Agree or disagree with the lawsuits. If you own a website, you still have to deal with them.

This is not just a Florida man thing 🌎

Before you say “well that’s just Florida” 🌴 let me stop you.

California. A Sacramento Business Journal op-ed says more than 3,000 California businesses were sued over website tools in two years. Tens of thousands more got demand letters.

Accessibility nationwide. TV newsrooms in Jacksonville, Orlando and Pittsburgh each reported nearly 4,000 website accessibility cases filed in 2025. About 90% came from just 16 law firms. At least 35 Jacksonville businesses have been sued. This is not new either. A Colorado winery got hit with a website accessibility suit back in 2020.

The lawsuit menu nobody ordered 🍦

Cookie consent and tracking 🍪 Plaintiffs say tools like analytics and pixels collect visitor data before anyone agrees to it.

Privacy policy 📄 This one comes up a lot in what I have read. Think of it as one piece of the puzzle and not the whole thing.

Accessibility (ADA) ♿ People have sued over sites that are hard to use with screen readers and keyboards.

9 questions to ask your designer 🤔

Does my site have a privacy policy and cookie policy that name every tool it uses?
Does my cookie banner actually stop tracking until a visitor agrees? (A banner that just sits there looking pretty does not count 🙃)
Can visitors opt out?
Does my site have an accessibility statement?
What real accessibility work did you do? Ask about alt text, keyboard navigation, labeled forms and color contrast.
Do you rely on a widget alone?
Who checks all this after launch and how often?
Does our contract say who is responsible for compliance?
Is compliance work in your price or billed separately?

Advocate for yourself. They need to be looking out for you.

A word about widgets 🪄

A widget is a helpful extra and not the whole fix. According to WPXI in Pittsburgh, one business owner hired help to make her site compliant and still got sued three times. Look for real accessibility coding behind any widget. Real effort shows.

Your contract probably says nothing 🖊️

Most website contracts have nothing in them about compliance. Mine did not either at first. Check over the contract you have or are looking to sign with a web design or development company. See if it covers compliance and their plans to make your site compliant.

Expect to pay for this 💸

Compliance is extra work. Many designers now add 10 to 15 compliance tasks to every new site. I do, but my prices have not changed. Others may charge extra, and that is fair. Some will send you straight to a compliance company. Either way you do not have to be a legal eagle to protect your business. Just do your homework before you pick a web design, development or compliance company.

What I learned the hard way 🐇

After the lawsuit I dove straight into consent and compliance. I ran scanner after scanner on my own site. Every scanner gave different results. Some flagged things that were fine. Others missed real problems. It was a nightmare.

Then my phone rang. It was the founders of ConsentStack. I had used their tool so many times that they tracked me down and said “What do you need? We are here to help.”

I went back through 10 years of past clients and offered to do the work to get each site as compliant as we could, because I want my work to have integrity behind it. I also offered a big discount on ConsentStack, the company I now use. For two weeks the ConsentStack team and I adjusted over 25 sites at no charge, with more in the works. They are the real deal in this space.

As I contacted more clients, many said no or ghosted me. Others had moved to different agencies so I sent my story to those agencies instead.

Full disclosure: I took advantage of every bit of help ConsentStack offered. That includes discounts for my clients and their affiliate offer, so I earn a small commission if you sign up through my link. But I would share this anyway. I saw the integrity they showed me and my clients the whole way through.