The 3 Policies You Need to Legally Protect Your Website

Newsflash! If you own a website, it is important to have legal policies in place to protect yourself and your users. Yep, you heard it here. Your website is your online “home” and needs legal protection too.   In fact, some of the policies below are legally required and your business can be fined, denied from using Facebook Ads, and more if you don’t have them in place (and in the proper places).  

These policies help you comply with laws and regulations, limit your liability, and provide transparency to your users. I know, how cool is that?!  Let’s discuss the three essential policies you need to legally protect your website: Privacy Policy, Website Terms of Service, and Disclaimers. Ready? 

#1: PRIVACY POLICY

A Privacy Policy is a legal document that outlines how you collect, use, and share personal information from your website users. It is REQUIRED by law in many jurisdictions, including the European Union and the state of California (and guess what, no matter where you are, your website shows up in California and Cali peeps are looking at it so….you have to comply with their regulations.)  And yes, our Privacy Policy template complies with the EU’s GDPR and Cali laws. 

A Privacy Policy should include the following:

• The types of personal information you collect, such as name, email address, or payment information
• How you collect personal information, such as through cookies or opt-ins
• How you use personal information, such as to provide services or marketing communications
• How you share personal information, such as with third-party service providers or government authorities
• How you protect personal information, such as through encryption or other security measures
• How users can access, modify, or delete their personal information
• How you notify users of changes to your Privacy Policy

#2 WEBSITE TERMS OF SERVICE 

Website Terms of Service the rules that govern the use of your website BY users. So while the Privacy Policy is about protecting your users from you, your Website Terms are about protecting YOU from them. (These are different from Terms of Purchase or Terms of Use that would be tied to a program you are selling, more on that in this previous blog post here).  They are not legally required, BUT they can help you limit your liability and protect your intellectual property like blog posts, newsletters and videos (so kind of a no brainer). 

Your Website Terms of Service should include the following:

• The “rules” for using your website, like they can’t steal your content, post mean things or threats in the comments, etc
• Your ownership of the website content, such as copyright or trademarks
• Your disclaimer of liability for third-party websites (meaning, if you you link other websites from yours, whether that’s Amazon, or other sites or products you may recommend)
• Your disclaimer of warranty or guarantee for your website (basically there is no guarantee, you are just providing info and education)
• Your dispute resolution process should something go down, such as arbitration or small claims court (this DOES happen, bloggers do get sued for things like negligence when someone has relied on the information on the blog and gets physically, financially or mentally injured). The Media Law Resource Center estimated that there were $17.4 million in court judgments made against bloggers by the end of 2014 (read more here). 

#3 DISCLAIMERS

Disclaimers, ah disclaimers, my favorite. They are a statement that limits your liability or responsibility for certain aspects of your website or services (whohoo, we love that). They are not legally required, but they can help you avoid lawsuits or claims from users.  Of note, often disclaimers are included in your Website Terms of Service and that’s totally fine. 

As long as you get your website policies and disclaimers from a source you trust and know they were drafted by an attorney, you should be good to go! 

Your Disclaimers should include the following:

• Your disclaimer of liability for the accuracy or completeness of your website content
• Your disclaimer of liability for the use of your website or services
• Your disclaimer of liability for any damages or losses caused by your website or services
• Your disclaimer of responsibility for the actions or behavior of users on your website or services

That’s it! Not so bad huh?  Having these policies in the footer on every page of your website (plus having our privacy policy on any landing pages and at the point where you are collecting emails) will go a long way to protect your website and your users. If you need the above, check out our Website Collection, it includes everything mentioned above!