Is there any privacy and term of service templates out there for developers who do not have the legal team to write those for them? Of course, nothing fancy, tricky or unusual about these that I want to put in there.
A:
I always find to get a rough idea of what is required go to a respectable site doing a similar trade and just have a look through their terms and privacy. Seems to be the easiest way to get a general idea of what is required.
Andi
2009-03-03 14:01:31
This is good advice, as long as you don't take any of their terms or privacy as it is a breach of copyright law.
EnderMB
2009-03-03 14:16:07
Conversely, this is bad advice. Your terms of service and privacy policy should reflect the content of your site. The ToS of a site that allows users to upload videos will be different of a job posting site.
Jordan L. Walbesser
2009-03-03 15:50:12
"doing a similar trade " thats what i mean, within the same area. But really the answer should only be see a Lawyer and get them to sort it. If you don't have cashflow currently though you can get an idea of structure from other peoples terms. But like EnderMB said don't copy any of it! - Andi
Andi
2009-03-03 17:39:31
A:
This was addressed in another question, see here
Do some independent research and be prepared when you come to your lawyer. The more work you can do in advanced (e.g. handing them a ToS and privacy policy you think is decent), the better.
Jordan L. Walbesser
2009-03-03 14:12:12
+2
A:
Nine times out of ten you're not going to need any kind of fancy-pants Terms of Service. It all depends on how you see your website being used and how many problems could potentially arise.
If you want a Privacy Policy or a Terms of Service you're going to have to either:
- Pay a lawyer to do it
- Do it yourself
Taking one from another website is not an option. Imagine if you had shelled out a fortune to get a legal team to poke holes and rewrite your ToS several times, only for someone else to swoop from above and steal it for their similar website. Taking somebody's Privacy Policy or Terms of Service is against the law and as far as I can remember breaking copyright law; meaning that as a civil law the writer can sue you.
In short, do you REALLY need one? Do you really need a long-winded one like the ones on YouTube and Facebook? A lot of companies today are choosing not to have a privacy policy to avoid extra lawsuits when they break it. If you want to write your own here is a good resource for writing your own.
EnderMB
2009-03-03 14:15:15
+2
A:
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Adam Davis
2009-03-03 14:17:01
If you can't afford the low cost of a cheap lawyer for a one time boiler-plate TOS document, you CERTAINLY can't afford a lawsuit. Don't make the excuse here that you're asking a bunch of programmers about this because you don't have a "legal team": you don't need one. You need 5 hours of a lawyer.
Adam Davis
2009-03-03 14:19:14
This is like saying, "I can't afford a real backup system, so I'm wondering if there's a good printer I can use to print off everything and we'll store it in a filing cabinet. If something goes wrong, we'll figure it out later." Stock TOS isn't going to protect you against a real lawsuit.
Adam Davis
2009-03-03 14:26:15
+1 - This answer totally explains everything. Just the answer I was looking for. Sigh.
lucifer
2010-08-27 08:52:31
+2
A:
I am in a situation where I want to get some TOS for a project I am working on. I really like GitHub's TOS - but as mentioned before, ripping it from a site without permission is probably copyright infringement, and also just bad manners.
However, I just got a hot tip on this from someone. Wordpress' TOS are under creative commons sharealike, so you can use them as a starting point for your own: http://en.wordpress.com/tos/
Andrew Theken
2009-07-28 13:49:27