Selling online in Israel: disclosure duties, cancellation, the home-page cancellation link and the spam law

Internet Law · October 21, 2026 · 10 min read

The short answer

The Consumer Protection Law, 5741-1981, applies to online selling only where the buyer is a “consumer” – a person buying for a use that is mainly personal, domestic or family. Towards a consumer, a transaction concluded on a website is a “distance sale”, and it carries four duties: disclosure of seven particulars before the contract (section 14C(a) of the Consumer Protection Law); a written document no later than the time of supply (section 14C(b)); a right to cancel within 14 days, with a cancellation fee of up to 5% or ILS 100, whichever is lower (sections 14C(c) and 14E); and a dedicated cancellation link on the main page of the site (section 14I(b), in force since 26 November 2017). The price displayed must be the total price, in shekels only (section 17D). In parallel, every marketing e-mail or text message is subject to section 30A of the Communications (Telecommunications and Broadcasting) Law, 5742-1982 – express prior consent or the existing-customer exception, the “advertisement” label and an unsubscribe option – and a breach costs up to ILS 1,000 per message, without proof of damage. The mailing list itself is also subject to the Protection of Privacy Law, 5741-1981, to a degree that varies with its use.

1. Who the Law covers: “consumer” and “business”

Section 1 of the Consumer Protection Law defines a “consumer” as “a person who buys an asset or receives a service from a business in the course of its business, for a use that is mainly personal, domestic or family”, and a “business” as “a person who sells an asset or provides a service by way of business, including a manufacturer”. A platform selling to businesses only is outside the distance-selling provisions, and its customers have no statutory right of cancellation. Its terms of use are still a “standard contract” under the Standard Contracts Law, 5743-1982 – see our article on terms of use. A site selling to both audiences applies the consumer regime to anyone who may be a consumer, because the test is the purpose of the purchase. A “distance sale” is defined in section 14C(f) of the Consumer Protection Law as a transaction concluded following “distance marketing” by electronic communication, “without the joint presence of the parties”.

2. Disclosure before and after the transaction – section 14C

Section 14C(a) of the Consumer Protection Law lists seven particulars the business “must disclose to the consumer ... at least” before the contract: (1) its name, identity number and address in Israel and abroad; (2) the main characteristics of the asset or service; (3) the price and the available payment terms; (4) the date and manner of supply; (5) the period during which the offer is valid; (6) particulars of the warranty for the asset; (7) particulars of the right to cancel under section 14C(c) or section 14C1(c).

Section 14C(b) of the Consumer Protection Law adds a second duty: “in a distance sale the business shall supply the consumer, in writing, in Hebrew or in the language in which the marketing approach was made, no later than the time of supply of the asset or service, a document” containing the business’s details, the main characteristics, the price and payment terms, how the right of cancellation is exercised, the manufacturer’s name and country of manufacture, the warranty and any further terms applying to the transaction. In practice this is the order-confirmation e-mail, and the date of its receipt matters directly: in some cases the 14 cancellation days run from it.

3. The right of cancellation – 14 days, exceptions and four months

Section 14C(c) of the Consumer Protection Law distinguishes between goods and services. For goods, the consumer may cancel “from the day of the transaction until fourteen days from the day of receiving the asset or from the day of receiving the document containing the particulars referred to in subsection (b), whichever is later”. For a service, cancellation is possible within 14 days of the transaction or of receiving the document, whichever is later; in a continuing transaction “whether or not the provision of the service has begun”, and in any other – at least two days that are not rest days before the date of the service. Since the Consumer Protection Law (Amendment No. 52), 5777-2017, there is no requirement that the notice be in writing – the word “in writing” was deleted from section 14C(c).

Section 14C(d) of the Consumer Protection Law excludes only five kinds of transaction from the right of cancellation: perishable goods; hospitality, travel, holiday or leisure services, where the cancellation falls within seven days that are not rest days before the date of the service; “information” as defined in the Computers Law, 5755-1995; goods manufactured specially for the consumer; and copyable goods whose packaging has been opened. The list is closed, and section 2(b2) of the Consumer Protection Law prohibits telling the consumer that there is no right to cancel without stating the qualifications set by law.

Section 14C1 of the Consumer Protection Law gives a person with a disability, a senior citizen and a new immigrant, as defined in the section, a right to cancel within four months – “provided that the conclusion of the transaction included a conversation between the business and the consumer, including a conversation by electronic communication” (section 14C1(c)). A fully self-service purchase is outside the section; a purchase completed with the help of a representative in a chat is inside it.

4. Consequences of cancellation: fee, refund and return of the goods – section 14E

Section 14E of the Consumer Protection Law distinguishes between cancellation because of a defect, non-conformity, late supply or “any other breach of the contract by the business” (section 14E(a)) and cancellation for any other reason – regret (section 14E(b)). In the second case the business may charge “a cancellation fee at a rate not exceeding 5% of the price of the asset that is the subject of the contract or transaction, or 100 new shekels, whichever is lower” – and no other sum; on cancellation for breach there is no fee at all. In both cases the refund is made within 14 days of receiving the notice, and in the first case the consumer places the goods at the business’s disposal at the place of delivery, in the second returns them to the business’s place of business.

“Cancellation fee” is defined in section 14E(d) of the Consumer Protection Law as including “expenses or an undertaking in respect of delivery, packaging or any other expense or undertaking” – so shipping may not be charged on top of the cap. Cancellation does not derogate from the business’s right to claim its loss if the value of the goods fell “as a result of a significant deterioration in their condition” (section 14E(c)).

5. Cancellation channels and the home-page cancellation link – section 14I

Section 14I of the Consumer Protection Law was added by the Consumer Protection Law (Amendment No. 52), 5777-2017 (Sefer HaChukkim 2650, 26 July 2017), and came into force on 26 November 2017. Where the consumer has a right to cancel, under the Law or under the contract, the business must allow cancellation by each of the following channels (section 14I(a)): orally – by telephone or at the place of business; by registered mail; by e-mail; by fax, if the business has one; and online – in a transaction that can be concluded by that means.

Section 14I(b) of the Consumer Protection Law is the less known and more frequently breached provision: “in respect of a transaction that can be concluded with a consumer online, a business shall create on the main page of its website a dedicated link through which a cancellation notice can be sent in accordance with subsection (a)(5), placed prominently and clearly.” That is: the main page, not a “contact us” page; a dedicated cancellation link, not a link to the terms; and a prominent placement, not a grey line at the foot of the page.

Disclosure duties accompany the link: the business must disclose to the consumer in writing the cancellation channels and contact details, no later than the time of supply (section 14I(d)), and also on the invoice and on the main page of the site – for every business with a website, even one that does not sell on it – next to the dedicated link (section 14I(e)), “with special prominence and in clear and legible letters” (section 14I(f)). In a continuing transaction, a cancellation notice under section 14I ends the transaction within three business days (section 13D(c) of the Consumer Protection Law), and a business that keeps charging after it is exposed to exemplary damages of up to ILS 10,000, and up to ILS 50,000 for a repeated or continuing breach (section 31A(a)(2b) of the Consumer Protection Law).

6. The Cancellation Regulations versus the distance sale

Alongside the distance-selling regime there is a general one, independent of how the purchase was made: the Consumer Protection Regulations (Cancellation of a Transaction), 5771-2010, made under section 14F of the Consumer Protection Law. The Regulations grant a right of cancellation for a closed list of goods and services – among them furniture, electrical devices, clothing and footwear and continuing services – provided the price of the goods exceeds ILS 50 and they are returned unused and undamaged. In an online transaction the consumer has both rights side by side; the cancellation channels and the cancellation link of section 14I of the Consumer Protection Law, however, do not apply to cancellation under the Regulations (section 14I(g)).

Item	Distance sale – sections 14C and 14E of the Consumer Protection Law	Consumer Protection Regulations (Cancellation of a Transaction), 5771-2010
Scope	Any asset or service bought at a distance, except the exceptions in section 14C(d)	Only the goods and services listed in regulation 2; exclusions in regulation 6 – among them food, medicines, underwear and custom-made goods
Cancellation period	14 days from receipt of the goods or the document, whichever is later	Mostly 14 days from receipt of the goods; clothing and footwear – until the end of the two following days that are not rest days, with the price tag intact (regulation 2(2))
Refund deadline	14 days	7 business days, by the same means of payment (regulation 4)

7. The total price, in shekels – section 17D and the Agoda case

Section 17D of the Consumer Protection Law provides: “a business shall not publish or quote, expressly or by implication, a price of an asset or service offered to a consumer, unless it is the total price only and solely in Israeli currency.” In a distance sale this is joined by the definition of “price of the asset” in section 14C(f) of the Consumer Protection Law – “including delivery charges and any other addition or expense that will apply to the consumer”. A price without VAT, without shipping or in dollars does not meet the requirement.

The leading decision is LCA 6992/22 Agoda Company Pte. Ltd. v. Tzvia (27 May 2024; Vilner, Grosskopf and Ronen JJ.): a booking site with a Hebrew interface displayed, as alleged in the motion to certify a class action, prices without VAT, and its terms of use pointed to Singapore law. The Supreme Court dismissed Agoda’s appeal on two grounds: a foreign choice-of-law clause cannot oust the application of cogent statutory provisions whose purpose is consumer protection, where Israeli law applies to the dispute; and it is an unfair term in a standard contract. Grosskopf J. added, with Ronen J. concurring, that between a global corporation and small customers such a clause is “unfair by definition”; Vilner J. alone declined to adopt that sweeping rule, but agreed that the clause does not override the cogent provisions of Israeli consumer law – which applies where the customer browsed the Israeli version of the site or from an Israeli IP address.

8. Enforcement: financial sanctions and exemplary damages

The Consumer Protection and Fair Trade Authority may impose financial sanctions under section 22C of the Consumer Protection Law. Failure to disclose the particulars under section 14C(a), failure to supply the document under section 14C(b), failure to allow cancellation by the channels in section 14I or to disclose the information under it, and publishing a price contrary to section 17D – all are on the list in section 22C(a), whose base amount is ILS 22,000 (ILS 7,000 for an individual); the graver breaches in section 22C(b) – ILS 45,000 (ILS 25,000 for an individual). The amounts are index-linked, and for 2026 they are ILS 25,950 (ILS 8,260) and ILS 53,070 (ILS 29,490) respectively (Yalkut HaPirsumim 5786, p. 2212).

On the civil side, section 31A of the Consumer Protection Law allows exemplary damages without proof of damage on the causes it lists; on the cause of continued charging after a cancellation under section 14I (section 31A(a)(2b)) – up to ILS 10,000, and for a repeated or continuing breach or in aggravating circumstances – up to ILS 50,000. The claim is conditional on a prior written demand, which may be sent electronically (section 31A(b)); on that cause, the cancellation notice itself counts as the demand.

9. The spam law – section 30A of the Communications Law

Section 30A of the Communications (Telecommunications and Broadcasting) Law, 5742-1982, known as the “spam law”, regulates the sending of “advertisements” – a message distributed commercially “whose purpose is to encourage the purchase of a product or service or to encourage the spending of money in another way” – by four channels: fax, automatic dialling system, “electronic message” and “short message”. An “advertiser” is also anyone whose business the content may promote.

The rule: express prior consent. Section 30A(b) of the Communications Law prohibits sending an advertisement “without the recipient’s express prior consent, in writing, including by electronic message or in a recorded conversation”. A one-time approach to a business, constituting an offer to consent to receive advertisements, is permitted – but a message that is itself an advertisement is not such a “one-time approach” (Hazani, below).

The existing-customer exception. Section 30A(c) of the Communications Law permits sending an advertisement without consent “where all of the following are met”, and the Supreme Court in Lapid read it as four cumulative conditions:

1. the recipient gave their details in the course of a purchase or negotiations for one;
2. the advertiser informed them that the details would be used for sending advertisements;
3. the recipient was given an opportunity to refuse, and did not;
4. the advertisement concerns a product or service “of a similar type” to the one purchased.

Message content and unsubscribing. Section 30A(e) of the Communications Law requires the word “advertisement” at the start of the message and, in e-mail, in the subject line; the advertiser’s name, address and contact details; and the recipient’s right to refuse and a simple way of doing so, with, for e-mail, a valid internet address for it. In a text message the advertiser’s name and contact details for refusal suffice. The recipient may refuse at any time, free of charge other than the cost of sending the notice, “in writing or in the way the advertisement was sent, at the recipient’s choice” (section 30A(d)). Section 30A(h) of the Communications Law places a duty of supervision on the manager and the person responsible for marketing, presumed breached if an advertisement was sent in breach of the section.

ILS 1,000 per message. Section 30A(j) of the Communications Law empowers the court to award exemplary damages “in an amount not exceeding 1,000 new shekels for each advertisement the recipient received contrary to the provisions of this section”, without proof of damage, having regard to enforcement and deterrence and to the extent of the breach – and not to the damage actually caused. The condition is that the advertisement was sent “knowingly”, but section 30A(j)(5) of the Communications Law presumes that an advertiser who sent an advertisement in breach of the section did so knowingly unless it proves otherwise – and removes the defence altogether where the message was sent after a refusal notice, after a previous breach towards the same recipient, or to a randomly generated list of addresses. Three decisions mark the boundaries:

• LCA 2904/14, 3545/14 Glasberg v. Club Ramon Ltd. (27 July 2014) – the model is prior consent: the recipient’s failure to unsubscribe is irrelevant to liability; ILS 1,000 is the starting point from which the court may reduce; there is no duty to mitigate, though a simple unsubscribe option may be weighed; and serial plaintiffs may receive reduced awards.
• LCA 1954/14 Hazani v. Hangbi (4 August 2014) – each message is a separate breach: 27 messages set a ceiling of ILS 27,000, and ILS 10,000 was awarded plus ILS 15,000 in costs, so that a small claim is worth bringing; departing from Glasberg, the court held that an unsubscribe option included in the message is not a ground for reducing the award.
• CA 534/17 Lapid v. Cellcom Israel Ltd. (6 March 2019) – the existing-customer exception: the notice of the use of the details may be given after they were collected, provided it precedes the first advertisement; “similar type” covers the range of the business’s ordinary products – an electronics store may advertise televisions to a buyer of a refrigerator – but not unrelated products and not another business’s list.

10. The mailing list and the Protection of Privacy Law – three tiers

The list of recipients itself is personal data, and the Protection of Privacy Law, 5741-1981, as amended by Amendment No. 13 in force since 14 August 2025, applies to it to a degree that varies with the use. The governing guidance is Privacy Protection Authority Guideline 2/2017 on direct mailing and direct-mailing services, republished in 2026 in an “updated version following Amendment 13”:

Tier	Applicable law
(a) An ordinary newsletter to the business’s own customers and subscribers, segmented at most by data they themselves supplied	Not “direct mailing” (Guideline 2/2017, paras 13.1–13.2). Only section 30A of the Communications Law applies: prior consent or the existing-customer exception, an unsubscribe option and the “advertisement” label.
(b) Segmentation by a characteristic that creates a new profile – age, religion, inferred consumption habits (the Guideline’s example in para 14.1: a food chain mailing its customers of a given religion before their holiday)	“Direct mailing” as defined in section 3 of the Protection of Privacy Law: advance notice; a statement in every mailing that it is direct mailing, with the right of deletion and the controller’s identity (section 17F(a) of the Protection of Privacy Law, which applies to every direct-mailing approach – although under para 19.1.5 of Guideline 2/2017 the Authority will generally not enforce the notice element towards active customers); and a right of deletion under section 17F(b) of the Law. Under the Authority’s opinion on consent (25 February 2026, para 74), for profiling not required for the service between parties with unequal bargaining power passive consent does not suffice, and a separate active opt-in is required.
(c) Transferring the list to others or using it for others	“Direct-mailing services”: registration of the database (section 17D of the Protection of Privacy Law), a record of the source of each data set and of whom it was given to (section 17E), the database’s registration number in every mailing – the only element of section 17F(a) specific to direct-mailing services – alongside the other particulars of section 17F(a), a separate active opt-in under para 74 of the opinion on consent, and a privacy protection officer where the database holds data on more than 10,000 persons (section 17B1(a)(2)).

Sections 17C and 17G of the Protection of Privacy Law were repealed by Amendment No. 13, and the definitions now sit in section 3 of the Law. The sanctions under section 23כו of the Protection of Privacy Law: an unregistered database used for direct-mailing services – ILS 150,000 (ILS 153,540 in 2026); failing to honour a deletion demand under section 17F(b) – ILS 15,000 (ILS 15,350 in 2026). In all tiers the duty of notice under section 11 of the Protection of Privacy Law also applies – see our article on privacy policies.

The firm drafts the set of documents for a website or app as one whole – see legal documents for websites and apps; for founders incorporating a company for the online business – company formation at the firm.

Frequently asked questions

Must an online shop let a consumer cancel even when the product is not defective?

Yes. Section 14C(c) of the Consumer Protection Law gives a consumer in a distance sale the right to cancel within 14 days of receiving the goods or of receiving the section 14C(b) document, whichever is later, without giving a reason. The business may charge a cancellation fee of up to 5% of the price or ILS 100, whichever is lower, and must refund the balance within 14 days (section 14E(b)).

Must the cancellation link be on the home page, or is a “contact us” page enough?

On the home page. Section 14I(b) of the Consumer Protection Law requires a business with which a transaction can be concluded online to create “on the main page of its website a dedicated link through which a cancellation notice can be sent”, placed “prominently and clearly”. The duty was added by the Consumer Protection Law (Amendment No. 52), 5777-2017, and has been in force since 26 November 2017.

May a site require that a cancellation notice be sent in writing only?

No. Amendment No. 52 deleted the word “in writing” from section 14C(c) of the Consumer Protection Law, and section 14I(a) obliges the business to allow cancellation by each of the channels it lists, including orally by telephone. Failing to allow cancellation by one of the channels is a ground for a financial sanction under section 22C(a) of the Law.

May shipping costs be charged to a consumer who cancels out of regret?

Not on top of the cancellation fee. Section 14E(d) of the Consumer Protection Law defines “cancellation fee” as including delivery and packaging expenses, so the cap of 5% or ILS 100 is the total that may be charged. Where cancellation follows a defect or another breach by the business, no cancellation fee may be charged at all (section 14E(a)).

May a newsletter be sent to a customer who bought on the site without ticking a consent box?

Possibly, under the existing-customer exception in section 30A(c) of the Communications (Telecommunications and Broadcasting) Law, 5742-1982, if all four of its conditions are met: the details were given in the course of a purchase; the business said they would be used to send advertising; an opportunity to refuse was given and the customer did not refuse; and the advertising concerns a product “of a similar type”.

Is the site’s mailing list a database that must be registered?

In most cases, no. A business’s newsletter to its own customers, segmented only by data they supplied, is not “direct mailing” under Privacy Protection Authority Guideline 2/2017, and only section 30A of the Communications Law applies to it. Segmentation that creates a new profile makes it “direct mailing” as defined in section 3 of the Protection of Privacy Law, 5741-1981, and gives rise to a right to demand deletion under section 17F(b) of the Law; and transferring the list to others – “direct-mailing services”, which require registration under section 17D of the Protection of Privacy Law.

The above is general information on Israeli law only, current as of the date of publication, and does not constitute legal advice or a substitute for advice on your specific circumstances. Sanction and damages figures are those set in the legislation and in the authorities’ publications at the date of publication and are updated from time to time. Consult a lawyer before acting.

← All articles