Your website is an extension of your business.  It gives your potential customers or clients information about you, might gather information about them, and provides a way for others to contact you or purchase your goods or services.

You need to let visitors know the rules of the road for your website—and you need to follow the rules as well.  Spelling out the rules in clearly written documents on your website protects you, your intellectual property, and your customers.

Site Use Agreement or Terms of Use

The basic document governing the use of a website is the site use agreement, terms of use or user agreement.  This agreement tells users how they can use the website and the information on it.  For example:

• Trademarks.  You want users to view your trademarks but not use them for their own commercial purposes.
• Text and images.  You want users to view your copyrighted text and images but not use them for their own commercial purposes.
• Disclaimers.  You might want to limit the extent to which users may rely on information you provide on your website or other websites to which you provide links.
• Dispute resolution.  You want to specify how and where any dispute arising from the use of the website will be handled.

Not only must the terms be clear and accurate, but also to be enforceable the document itself must be easily accessible so that the user has reasonable notice of its existence and terms.

Privacy Policy

Users want to know what information your website collects about them, how the information is collected, and what you do with the information.

Just as important, the Federal Trade Commission wants to make sure that what you say about your information collection practice is what you actually do.  That’s why you need a carefully drafted privacy policy and not just one taken from some other website.

In addition, if you collect personal information from children under 13 or your website is aimed at children under 13, special rules apply, and you must obtain parental consent before collecting, using, or disclosing such information.   These rules also apply to mobile apps.

Sales Agreement

If you sell products or services online, then your website needs a sales agreement, which defines the critical terms of sale, including:

• Payments and refunds
• Delivery
• Dispute resolution procedures

To be effective, the buyers must affirmatively agree to the sales agreement.

What We Do

Balough Law Offices’ attorneys will help you carefully craft the necessary agreements for your website.  We want to ensure that what the agreements say is what you actually do on your website and that they protect you.