Developing Terms of Service / Privacy Policy for Website

[KingHippo]

What did you guys do to make your terms of service and privacy policy for your websites? Is there a simple "catch all" template that I can use for my website or do I have to hire professional legal services?

[vangogh]

I think there are some templates out there, though maybe not exactly like one what you want.

If the legality of the TOS and privacy policy is important you should probably consult an attorney to make sure everything is legal. Otherwise you can look at similar sites grab a bunch of their policies, combine them and rewrite them until they fit what you need.

At the moment I only have a privacy policy. The first half is written mostly off the top of my head. I just want to be open an honest about collecting cookies and what they do. The rest is basically legalese I wrote by grabbing, combining, and rewriting.

[KristineS]

I just looked at what a bunch of other sites had and then crafted one that suited our needs. That seemed the easiest way.

[Business Attorney]

When I write them for my clients, even though I have written many over the years, I generally go to similar businesses to make sure that someone else hasn't thought of something I didn't consider. I have never once found one that was a "template" in the sense that I would be comfortable using it verbatim. There always seems to be either something left out or something that doesn't apply to the current situation.

Although I think it is always good to have a lawyer either prepare the text or at least review it, in some cases the privacy statements or terms and conditions are so simple that you are probably pretty safe doing it on your own, particularly if you look at a reasonable number of comparable websites rather than just grabbing one.

The more you look at, the more likely you will have a few that have actually been written or reviewed by someone who knew what they were doing. I can assure you that many of the ones you'll find are junk. I remember once reading the terms and conditions of a large well known computer vendor. It had several typos and a couple of incomplete sentences, none of which directly affected the overall gist of the provisions, but it made me wonder how carefully it had been reviewed.

Also, use some judgment as to how critical the T&C and privacy statements are to the client relationship. If your website is basically a brochure for your business, then the T&C may be fairly simple and something that is low risk to you. If you are handling financial records (like a bank or brokerage firm), medical records (like a hospital or insurance company) or other sensitive data that may be subject to specific legal requirements, you'd better be sure you know what you are doing.

I hope this helps.

[vangogh]

Interesting David. With my privacy policy it was less about the legal and more just me trying to be open about a couple of privacy related things. I didn't worry about the legalese of it when I was writing it. At the moment there's no need for a TOS on my site.

In the past when I was offering hosting to the general public I did have a TOS which I wrote after visiting a few hosting sites and collecting the three best (in my opinion) TOS pages. I read through them a number of times to understand them as best as I could, took parts from each, and rewrote them into something that made sense for me.

[Business Attorney]

Originally Posted by vangogh

In the past when I was offering hosting to the general public I did have a TOS which I wrote after visiting a few hosting sites and collecting the three best (in my opinion) TOS pages. I read through them a number of times to understand them as best as I could, took parts from each, and rewrote them into something that made sense for me.

That is often enough. It can get complicated, but if you: (1) know your business, (2) look at a reasonable number of websites who would be expected to have sufficient resources to have had an attorney draft or review their TOS, and (3) then take the time to really understand what the TOS says, you should be in reasonable shape. That sounds like it is what you did.

When there is a problem, it is often people want to save a few hundred dollars on attorneys fees but don't want to spend their own time coming up with a quality substitute for the attorney's work product. In that sense, it is like repairing your own car, laying a new hardwood floor, designing your own website or many other things. If you are willing to spend the time to learn what you are doing and then take the time to do it right, you are probably going to be at least OK. On the other hand, if you don't understand the knowledge, training and skill sets that a professional puts into the project, you are likely to do a mediocre job at best and you may find that you were penny wise and pound foolish.

Personally, I sometimes do things that others could do better or more effectively, but it is generally because I want to do it for the experience of doing it. In terms of saving money, my time is worth more to me than what I would pay for most of those things (and it almost always takes me more time than it would take a professional). For example, the heating element on my electric oven recently burned out. Rather than call a repairman, I found out online how to replace the element (and discovered that many people have done it themselves, which gave me some comfort). I ordered the part online, waited a few days for delivery and then installed it myself. I felt good about doing the repair myself, but not because I spent several hours over the course of the week to save the cost of the repairman's visit.

So, if someone wants to draft their own legal documents and enjoys doing it, I say more power to them! If they want to do it simply to save money, I suspect that unless they have nothing better to do with their time, they would be better off finding a business attorney they can work with.

[vangogh]

I probably spent a good couple of days reading through a lot of policies on other sites and then really reading the few I liked to understand. I did learn a lot too. Their policies helped me see a few things I hadn't considered.

If I were worried about the legality I would have had an attorney look over what I wrote to make sure I wasn't missing the obvious or I wasn't wording something in a way that could get me in trouble. I felt pretty good after I wrote my policies though and didn't feel the need.

A lot of legalese just needs to be ready slowly a couple of times to understand what it's saying. If you pay attention and take the time to understand you can often see what any passage is saying.

[KristineS]

Reading policies on other sites definitely helped me. Doing the reading helped point out some things I might otherwise have missed. Definitely spend some time researching how other companies write their policies.