Tips from an Attorney: You Could Be at Risk If Your Website Is Missing These Three, Often-Overlooked Policies

It’s so easy to create a website and start a business that many people overlook some of the logistical and legal details required to actually be in business. Overlooking these details, however, can be a risky (read: illegal) move.

There’s no need to hide behind your cape, superhero. I have just the person to walk you through exactly what you need to know.

Legalese made easy

Today you have the pleasure of getting first-rate legal advice from Levi Johnston of Intelekia Law Group, LLC.

Levi explains three commonly needed but often forgotten policies that belong on your website: Terms of Use, a Privacy Policy and an Affiliate Policy.

Terms of Use

Terms of Use are agreements between a website’s owner and its visitors that govern the visitor’s use of the website. Common reasons to have a Terms of Use include:

• Protection of your intellectual property or material protected by copyright.
• Limiting liability for any problems encountered by site users, including any liability for the consequences site users encounter if they misapply any advice you provide.
• A disclaimer of any warranties to site users; by operating a website, you are not promising that its contents or functions will be uninterrupted or error free, that all defects will be corrected, or that your site and its server are free from viruses or other problems.

In short, putting up a website can create implied “agreements” with people who are using it, and you want to clearly outline those agreements from their outset.

Privacy Policy

A Privacy Policy is an explanation of how companies receive, store, and use their customers’ private information gathered through a company website.

If you’re operating an internet business, it’s likely that the information you’re collecting includes:

• traffic data collected from a service like Google Analytics
• name, email address, and website, if you allow comments on your blog
• name and email address if you’re using an email newsletter service
• payment information if you accept credit cards on your website

Not all of that information is protectable, of course. Typically, anonymous usage statistics aren’t considered private information, although it’s still a good practice to let your website users know if you use those programs.

For the other categories, you need to consider how you’re collecting, storing, and using site users’ private information and develop policies that protect that information from inadvertent disclosure or abuse.

Drafting and posting the privacy policy isn’t enough. You need to take proactive steps to ensure that you are actually adhering to your own policies. Otherwise, you may be in violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act or state laws prohibiting unfair trade practices because posting and not following your privacy policy may be deceptive or unfair to consumers.

Affiliate Policy

If you earn commissions from the sale of another company’s products, you must disclose that fact on your website. An Affiliate Policy serves that purpose by disclosing and describing the relationships between a company and endorsers of the company’s products.

From the legal perspective, affiliates may be liable for any false or unsubstantiated statements made through endorsements of products because of truth in advertising laws or trade practice regulations. Practically speaking, as a business owner you are banking on your reputation and the trust that your readers and clients have in you; this extends to your endorsement of products or services.

Affiliates therefore have both a legal responsibility and a practical incentive to disclose their affiliate relationships. Describing how you are benefitting from your endorsement of a product in a transparent and straightforward manner will help maintain your reputation and preserve the relationships you have worked so hard to build.

How to get your own disclaimers

The safest way to get Terms of Use, a Privacy Policy or an Affiliate Policy for your website is to contact a small business lawyer in your area.

There are websites that provide resources for writing Terms of Use, Privacy Policies, and Affiliate Policies, but unless created or reviewed by a lawyer who is familiar with your business and website practices, you can’t be certain these resources apply to you.

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Levi S. Gatov Johnston, Attorney at Law, is a practicing attorney at Intelekia Law Group, LLC, in Portland, Oregon. Levi enjoys working with entrepreneurs and startup small businesses as they transition through various stages of business growth. He is an active member of the local bar, serving on both the Oregon New Lawyer Division Pro Bono Subcommittee and the MBA YLS Professional Development and Education Committee, and he often provides pro bono representations through the SBLC Pro Bono Project.

In his free time, he enjoys everything Portland has to offer while spending time with his wife Cydelle, son Nolan, and black lab mix Sadie.

You can find Levi and his legal team online at http://intelekia-law.com