Is Your Website Legal?
by Rachel Rodgers, Esq.
Nowadays it is not uncommon for a business to be quickly launched with a simple website. Tools like Wordpress, 99 Designs and PayPal make it easy for new entrepreneurs to set up a professional website and start selling their products or services online immediately.
Entrepreneurs creating their first website will take the time to create great copy, add blog articles and set up a mailing list to connect with their potential customers. What is often overlooked is the legal protections every website should have to protect its owner from liability and establish clear policies with website visitors and customers. There are also certain requirements that websites need to follow in order to comply with federal and state laws.
Privacy Policy
If you collect even one iota of information from those who visit your website, you need a privacy policy. For example, if you have a blog that gives visitors the option of signing up for your newsletter or RSS feed by entering their name and/or email address, you need a privacy policy. Business websites often collect a variety of sensitive information from their clients and visitors.
The privacy policy is all about letting visitors and clients know what information you are collecting from them when they visit your site, what you use this information for, whether you share their information with any third parties (most likely you do for payment collection and email subscription services) and how they can review or change the information of theirs that your company has on file.
Privacy policies should also include a statement stating how the website visitor will be notified about changes to the privacy policy and the date it was published or last updated. Think about your own information collection processes and draft a plain English policy that fits your website and business, or hire a lawyer to do it for you.
Terms and Conditions
Terms and conditions govern your businesses relationships with website visitors, subscribers and clients, particularly if you sell products or services from your website.
Terms and conditions can cover a wide variety of topics such as:
- your right to use the information posted by users on your site (such as blog comments and other user generated content),
- how your intellectual property posted on the site may be used by users (for example, can they re-post your articles on their own site if they give you credit?),
- terms of purchase including refund policies, shipping information, the purchase process, and more,
- warranties (basically promises or guarantees you're making about your website's content, the products or services you sell, etc.,
- website security (if they get malware from visiting your site, will you be responsible for that?),
- jurisdiction for any lawsuits arising from their use of your site (ie, if they want to sue you, in which state will they have to file the complaint?),
- and more.
Consider the ways in which clients and visitors could be injured (physically, financially, etc.) by visiting your website. Are you giving advice on a particular topic? Selling services or products? Making promises or guarantees? All of these things could open you up to liability, so having terms and conditions that limit that liability is essential.
Privacy policies and terms and conditions are not one-size-fits-all. Both legal notices will be useless unless they are tailored to the way you do business and interact with users via your website. If drafted thoughtfully, they will provide important protections for you as a business owner and ensure that your visitors and customers understand and agree to the business policies and processes you use.
Privacy policies and terms and conditions should also be posted on your site conspicuously and accessible from the homepage. And, ideally, users should check a box or click a button to express agreement to your legal notices to make them legally enforceable.
This article is a resource for educational and informational purposes and should not take the place of hiring an attorney. No information in this article creates an attorney-client relationship between us. Rachel Rodgers is a business lawyer for entrepreneurs. She runs her practice, Rachel Rodgers Law Office, entirely online. In addition to practicing law, Rachel blogs about virtual law offices and teaches a workshop for women lawyers who want to practice law online through her website, Her Virtual Law Office. She has been featured in Forbes, MSNBC, The Washington Post and other publications. Rachel is passionate about supporting military families who make so many sacrifices in service to our country.
Rachel Rodgers is a business lawyer for women entrepreneurs. She runs her practice, Rachel Rodgers Law Office, entirely online. In addition to practicing law, Rachel blogs about virtual law offices and teaches a workshop for women lawyers who want to practice law online through her website, Her Virtual Law Office. She has been featured in Forbes, MSNBC, The Washington Post and other publications. Rachel is passionate about supporting military families who make so many sacrifices in service to our country.
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