Boring? Maybe. But those legal policies that no one reads (except for attorneys, of course) serve a very important purpose. They cover your tail. Here is your quick + dirty guide to the anatomy of a legal blog:
Privacy Policy
You’ve seen this policy on plenty of websites. It is required if you collect any personal information from visitors of your website. At the very least, the policy should state the following:
- What information you are collecting from them
- Who you will share that information with (if anyone)
- How you will use the information
You will usually see the privacy policy either in the footer of a website, or embedded as a link in the newsletter sign up box. Now, I will say that I see privacy issues surface quite often in the small business world. For example: Business A has an event. Business B agrees to sponsor the event with products or services. However, Business A has to share the list of registered attendees with Business B for their future use (or maybe even their entire email list). Are you the guilty, Business A? Don’t be embarrassed. Just get it right for next time. Make sure you have a proper privacy policy on your website, as well as your event registration/ticket purchase page. Lastly, make sure that the policy is not hidden from your visitors.
Terms of Use
The terms of use policy helps to limit you, the website owners risk, by providing your visitors rules associated with your website. Minimally, the policy will address the following:
- describe the content that will be shared on your website
- provide rules for how visitors shall conduct themselves on your website
- provide a disclaimer for links to third party sites
- provide intellectual property information
Copyright Notice
You should provide a simple copyright notice in the footer of your website to let visitors know that you are the owner of the published content. The notice should follow this format: Copyright © 2013 Lifestyle Zen, LLC. All Rights Reserved. This tells visitors when you published the content, and who owns it (the owner could be you or your business).
You may also need the following policies for your website depending on the nature of it and your business:
Affiliate Disclosure Policy
If you are an affiliate for a particular company, and sell their products on your site then you must disclose that relationship on your website. DMCA The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice provides a procedure to follow if someone believes that content on your website infringes on their copyright.
Earnings Disclaimer
Some business owners via a website, sell a product or service that provide an opportunity for the buyer to make additional money, either from enhanced skills or from a specific business opportunity. This disclaimer provides that there is no guarantee of outcome, and limits the liability of the website owner.
Health/Medical Disclaimer
If you provide health or medical information, you will want to have a disclaimer on your site to limit liability if people don’t receive expected results, or are injured because of information received on your site.
Do you have the necessary policies and disclaimers on your blog? If not, it’s time to get to work.
This post is a part of the iBlog legal series. Read the rest of the series here.