8 Reasons Why Every Website & Mobile App Needs a Privacy Policy and Terms of Service

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Every single website and every mobile app should have legal terms and conditions governing its use (also called Terms of Service, TOS or Terms of Use), and a Privacy Policy disclosing how the user's data might be used.?Why? Because these policies protect your business, everyone values their privacy, and the avoidance of stating these policies and terms may get you into hot water that can easily be avoided.?

How can you get a TOS & Privacy Policy at an affordable price? If you're a small business on a bootstrapped budget, go to my website www.EZTOS.com. If you're a larger organization seeking full service legal help, contact me and my law firm [email protected] / https://www.outsidegc.com/attorney/brian-heller

There are at least 8 key reasons why you need a TOS & Privacy Policy for your business.

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1.???? Protect Your Intellectual Property. Protect your intellectual property (IP) so others cannot copy software, content or data from your website/app without your permission. A good TOS will state that (as between you and the end user) you own all the content, software, ideas, technology, and other intellectual property found within your website/app, and that there are serious penalties for anyone who tries to take them. It puts them on notice of these IP rights, and gives you the ability to seek remedies from them if they violate your IP. This includes prohibiting reselling, copying, or i-framing your website. For More Details See: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/briheller_8-reasons-why-every-website-or-app-needs-activity-7156428912305012736-MiuC

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2.???? Have Good Rules Regarding User Content. (a) Prohibit users from posting or transmitting offensive or illegal content or viruses. Your website might allow users to post comments, ratings, reviews, or other “user generated content” (also known as UGC). If so, you do not want to be liable if a user posts something inappropriate, offensive, pornographic, or illegal. As long as your terms have the correct language, you will not be responsible for this. You also want to reserve the right to remove any problematic user content immediately, without having to seek the user’s permission first, so you can act quickly if you notice inappropriate content. ?(b) On the flip side, for “good” user content, such as suggested improvements to your site, app or business generally, you want to secure your rights to use any ideas or content submitted by users. Users might be permitted to submit feedback or ideas to you, either through the site or app itself, or via email, text, or other messaging or customer services. If any of their feedback leads to new business ideas or improvements to your own products or services, you do not want that end user to claim that, since it was “their idea”, they own the rights to it, and/or that you have to share your profits with them. For More Details See: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/briheller_does-your-website-need-terms-of-service-activity-7157728022354100224--CLb

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3.???? Obtain Proper Rights to Data. Secure your rights to use user data in legally permissible ways (such as, just to name a few, for aggregated insights, retargeting, to create personalized ads and content, etc.). Advertising is getting increasingly sophisticated, with tools that help target ads based on cookies and other technology, retarget or segment users, behaviorally target, etc. Whether or not you plan to do any of this currently, you want to reserve the rights to do so in the future. Privacy laws may prohibit this unless you give the proper disclosures (public notice) to users that you reserve your rights to do so. This includes mandatory privacy disclosures about cookies and tracking technologies and user opt out rights. For More Details See: https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7158578741005139968

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4.???? Obtain Renewal Rights & Right to Charge Credit Card on File. Secure your rights to charge credit cards on file for paid services. In order to be allowed to charge a person’s credit card, they must give you their consent. If you have subscription products that require recurring charges, you need the user’s consent to be allowed to charge their card on file. This is the easiest way to regularly renew, with limited churn rates. For More Details See: https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7159286320773668865

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5.???? Limit Your Liability. (a) Disclaim your liability for third party (or open source) products and services featured on, or linked to or from, your site/app. Many sites and apps include a mix of your own content and tools, plus open source materials, plus third party content, services and APIs. You only want to be responsible for the portion of the tools and content you control and supply directly. You do not want to be liable for other people’s mistakes (such as if their materials infringe a third party’s rights). (b) Disclaim your liability for users who allege that their poor decisions are the result of your content or data. People do lots of stupid things. You do not want to be responsible for bad decisions your end users make, even if based on your data. Does this sound like it can’t happen? It happens all the time. People argue “this website told me to do X” – often when it did not really say that, or when it said that applies in SOME circumstances. You want a clear statement that any decisions made by the user – even if dependent on your data, content, tools, or advice – are their decisions alone, and you are not responsible for the decisions they make. For example, if your app gives stock market data, and the user makes a poor investment decision based on that data, you are not responsible for their losses. Believe me, they will try to argue that you should be liable, even though you shouldn’t be, unless you disclaim this responsibility. (c) Cap your liability in the event you are sued by any users, so you have a fixed maximum exposure. End users could try to sue you for large amounts, even if frivolous, under the theory that even if they’re unlikely to win, the potential benefit is worth the cost. You want to put an absolute cap on the most anyone can try to sue you for, to discourage such frivolous suits. ?(d) You want polices that leverage any applicable “safe-harbors” (for example, publishers are generally not liable for things other people say on their site or app). Some “boilerplate” disclosures are there to allow you maximum protection under the law. But they have to be worded properly to be effective. ?For More Details See: https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7163192646331531264

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6.???? Clarify Governing Law & Jurisdiction. ?Specify which court or jurisdiction will hear lawsuits involving your business. Avoid frivolous lawsuits and save yourself travel expenses, for example, by saying that if a user wants to sue you, they have to do so where you are located, not where they are located. For More Details See: https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7168341252009127937

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7.???? It’s Legally Required. A Privacy Policy is required by law to disclose to your users what data you collect, how you plan to use it, and to describe certain rights the user has. Certain third party sites, like the app stores on Apple & Google, require you to have legal terms and conditions, such as a TOS. If you don’t have them, then you’re in violation. For More Details See: https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7169421220361261056 ?

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8.???? To Customize to Your Situation. Good policies are not just copied from another site, but rather, they customize your terms as appropriate for your situation.? Among other things, this customization might include any appropriate disclaimers based on your specific industry or business model. Different disclaimers are appropriate for different circumstances so you want your TOS and PP to be customized, not off the shelf, not copied from another site that might include terms that are not appropriate for your situation. For More Details See: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/briheller_from-ez-tos-8-reasons-why-every-single-activity-7171190717795561472-KB3h

How can you get a TOS & Privacy Policy at an affordable price? If you're a small business on a bootstrapped budget, go to my website www.EZTOS.com. If you're a larger organization seeking full service legal help, contact me and my law firm [email protected] / https://www.outsidegc.com/attorney/brian-heller

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About the Author:

Brian Heller is a Tech Transactional Lawyer (Digital & Social Media, SaaS, Ad Tech, etc.) for Outside GC (OGC), a different kind of law firm.

OGC is virtual, so it’s much more affordable, and all OGC lawyers have prior in-house GC experience and/or experience in business roles.

Brian started his career with Shearman & Sterling in NYC, then Akin Gump in DC), then in-house in a variety of tech companies, and in Business Development and Corporate Development roles, including in a Private Equity owned startup, with a successful exit.

E-Mail:?[email protected] ?

Bio:?https://www.outsidegc.com/attorney/brian-heller