If you have a business website, it’s a good idea to have terms of use to protect your business and your visitor’s information.
If you are collecting a user’s personal information you are required by law to have a privacy policy in place. The same goes for your website. Effectively you are required to disclose how the information you are gathering will be used or not used.
The specific content included in Terms and Conditions of Use will be unique to your business and website type. However, you’ll find common themes woven throughout, despite your industry.
Here are some of the basic elements you’ll need to include.
You’ll need a basic disclaimer removing your liability for errors in your web content. Generally, it’s a clause that says you can’t be held responsible for any errors in content.
For websites that allow visitors to post content to your website, you need language that limits your liability from offensive postings. Add a disclaimer that you don’t endorse users and aren’t responsible for the statements made by third parties.
If your website uses cookies, you need to have a section that details how they are used to store information. You must also detail how users can decline these cookies by disabling them in their browser settings.
There are a variety of disclaimers you can use on your website and you should make sure all of them are detailed in this section. For example, this could include that the information provided is informational only, that the site is accepted as is, and that you are not liable for any promises you did not offer or intend to offer.
Regardless of what your website does, you should always include a notice about copyright and trademark to protect your intellectual property rights.
As we discussed above this is the only part of the Terms and Conditions that are legally required, stipulating how you will handle users’ information.
Your Terms and Conditions should also mention where your website is operating from in the terms and conditions agreement of the governing law (state/province and country).
This may look a bit daunting but we can help. The team here at EC Credit Control can draft your privacy policy and also supply website terms of use for you too.
Fill in your details and we’ll be in touch within a day to arrange a suitable time to catch up.
Information sources: Thank you to LegalNature and FreshBooks Blog for the content.
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