If you operate a web-based business (or any other business
for that matter), you ARE responsible for meeting certain
legal requirements.
Not being a lawyer, I’m not sure what all of those
requirements are. So this is NOT legal advice and should not
be taken as such UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!
I do know that as you become more successful, people will
pay closer attention to what you are doing, and that they
are MUCH more likely to file lawsuits against you.
Certain legal documents on your website, when properly
worded, and executed, do offer some protection.
For example, if you operate an affiliate program, you should
specify the terms of your affiliate program somewhere.
You need a terms of use that basically says that if they
use your website, they agree to abide by your terms, and if
legal proceedings ever do result, they will (among other
things) be conducted in YOUR locale.
If you collect any kind of data, you need a privacy policy
stating how you handle and protect that data, and what you
can and can’t do with it.
Again, I’m not offering ANY legal advice. If you need that
you should consult with a competent legal advisor.
I do have legal documents on many of my sites that were
drafted by an attorney, and he wrote them specifically for me
and my /my company’s circumstances.
Most attorneys will tell you that you really need to have an
attorney go over your legal documents to make sure that you
are protect because each person’s situation is different.
At the same time, attorneys often reference some common
database of legal documents/forms as a starting point for
drafting legal documents. They don’t generally start from
scratch, and many of them DO have common verbiage.
Many online marketers don’t want to spend thousands having
some attorney draft their legal documents. They look for
shortcuts and often just copy legal documents from others’
websites and modify them.
Most of those legal documents AREN’T the property of the
webmaster displaying them. Lawyers typically LICENSE the
documents they write to webmasters/business owners. Therefore,
copying those documents violate intellectual property rights
and can get you in trouble.
Some lawyers do use unique phrases in their work so that they
can use a site like Copyscape, and search for unauthorized
users of their intellectual property. When they discover this,
they DO often sue.
If you’re not familiar with Copyscape, it’s at:
http://copyscape.com/
Attorney Mike Young recognizes that many people don’t want to
pay to have simple forms drafted, so he created software that
generates many of the more common forms. I do use some of
these software generated forms (with minor modifications) on
some of my sites, and do recommend Mike’s software if you don’t
want to hire a lawyer to draft your website legal documents.
You’ll find Mike Young’s Website Legal Forms Generator at:
http://SageMarketer.com/Legal/
Willie
Tags: Mike Young, Website Legal Forms, Website Legal Forms Generator, Website Legal Forms Software