Would you leave the keys of your car inside an unlocked car? I’m guessing the answer here is a resounding “NO”.  In the same way, you need to protect your business with the Website Legal Pages so that you are not leaving your businesses wide open to face liability.  You started your business to do cool stuff… offer wonderful services to your customers; sell awesome products to your clients. More often than not, Taxes and Legal stuff interrupt your awesomeness. You see, to run a legitimate business, we (yes- I’m including myself here as a business owner) cannot avoid Taxes and the Legal Stuff.  We have to protect our businesses.

So in this post, we will look at the Legal stuff your website needs.  We are talking about the pages that you create on your website and link at the bottom footer of your website – 1) Privacy Policy AND 2) Terms & Conditions. As a Website Designer, these are 2 pieces of content I gather from my clients to put on their websites in addition to their website copy. Since they contain separate pieces of information and serve different purposes, best practice is to link them separately.

DISCLAIMER – Here is the part I cover my legal basis… Even though I have watched a lot of legal shows like “Suits” & “Reasonable Doubt” and love love love the fashion sense of Lawyer Jax, I’m not an attorney/ lawyer or a legal professional of any kind. This post does not constitute legal advice and is only intended  for informational & educational purposes. However, keep reading as I will share where you can get legit legal help for these documents.

Do you really need a PRIVACY POLICY and Website TERMS & CONDITIONS?

Straight no chaser! A Privacy Policy is a federal requirement in the United States especially if you collect any information from your website visitors. You may also be required to have sections relating to GDPR which stands for General Data Protection Regulation and/or California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

Whereas, the Term & Conditions page is not a legal requirement, it is a nice-to-have (best practice) as it provides protections for your website assets (more on this).

So let’s dive in more into each of these…

Privacy Policy

WHAT IS A PRIVACY POLICY?

The Privacy Policy informs your site visitors what kind of information you’re collecting and how you’re using that information. The best place to house this page is to link it to the footer section of your website.

WHAT SHOULD A PRIVACY POLICY INCLUDE?

Of all the documents you might have on your website this one might have the most legal terminology. 

The Privacy Policy needs to explain how you as a business are using the users personal information.  For instance, 

Whether you disclose or don’t disclose that information to a third party.   Which situation warrants you disclosing to a third party. Most importantly, it should include how the users can get their information back from you – how they can unsubscribe. If you have an e-Commerce site and have collected credit card information, you need to explain how you can strip that off from your business backend.

WHO SHOULD HAVE A PRIVACY POLICY?

Simple answer – all businesses.  Bloggers, Coaches, an Online Marketer, Freelancer, or you run an online shop… Regardless of your business, if you have a website, then you need a privacy policy.

WHAT CLASSIFIES AS COLLECTING INFORMATION ON MY WEBSITE?

• Website visitor signs up for a freebie and/or newsletter (email opt-in).  In this case, you are most likely collecting their First/Last Name, Email
• Page/Site traffic data – most sites will automatically do this especially if you are connected to Google Analytics.
• Payment information (credit/ debit card, Paypal,  etc)
• You are running Facebook ads (think instagram too) and have a Facebook pixel installed on your website
• Website is collecting cookies

Terms & Condition

WHAT IS A TERMS & CONDITION PAGE?

Simply put, the terms and conditions page are your website rules.  This serves as a contract between your site and your site visitors- what they can do or cannot do with your site content. You especially need this if you are going to make sales on your site but keep reading for what else it includes.

WHAT SHOULD A TERMS & CONDITION  INCLUDE?

This is the document that will house information like Refund/ Exchange Policy, Shipping Policy if it applies to the nature of your business. Information related to Intellectual Property of your website – think Images copyright or Text copyright. Earnings Disclaimers – if you are an Affiliate for any product or a general Disclaimer. 

The terms and conditions page will also contain the governing law provision, that is, which state law will be used should a dispute arise involving your business.

So now that you are convinced you need the Website Legal pages, how do you go about getting them?

I am so glad you asked… Here are a few options for you to consider, they are in no  way exhaustive but will provide you with a good place to start.

Option #1: Contact a local attorney and have them draft custom documents for you. Now you may be thinking there goes your profit margin when you see the words “lawyer & “custom” in the same sentence.  However, if your business requires specialized considerations then this is the way for you to go. Furthermore, it will still be cheaper to get this protection and use it when you are in a sticky situation with site visitors and clients than if you didn’t. Pro Tip: find an attorney who gets what your business does that way you will be assured that they can write a legal document that will adequately protect you and what you do/ offer.

Option #2: Get Ready to buy templates by a Lawyer. There are a bunch of shops online that sell Legal templates.  Here are just some examples. (At the moment, I am not an affiliate of either so no disclaimer needed here). This is the cheaper of both options and since my business, currently, does not have any complexities this is the option I am going for.

• The Legal Paige 
• The Creative Law Shop
• The Contract Shop

Don’t Invite Liability to your own doorstep by leaving  legal loose ends on your website.

 –PAIGE HUSTLE, Creative Law Shop