Co-branding is a means for two parties to team up on the web to maximize revenues. A co-branding agreement lays out the terms of their relationship and keeps a good thing from becoming a disaster. 

A co-branding agreement is somewhat akin to a strategic alliance. Two parties agree to work together on a project to produce revenues that are then split per an agreed upon formula. The difference is typically that one party simply creates a page touting their goods for the other's site. 

The "mixing" of properties on a site has major legal ramifications. Who will have final say on the page appearance? Will trademarks and copyright be allowed to be used? What about sharing of customer data? Who will host the page? Who will deal with customer service? What if there are chargebacks? The issues are not as extensive as with a strategic alliance, but they must be dealt with by the parties.

As you can probably guess, a co-branding agreement is used to put the agreement between the parties in writing. There is no standard agreement because every deal is different. That being said, there are some common components including answers to the questions in the previous paragraph. 

Do you really need a co-branding agreement? Absolutely. Let's assume you work a deal with a bigger site wherein they will build a page for your product and push it. After your page has been up for a week, you realize that they are sending out spam to drive traffic to their site in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act. You tell them to cease and desist, but they refuse. You demand they pull your page, but they refuse to take it down and tell you they will sue if you don't fulfill the orders. If you don't have an agreement in writing, you are going to end up in one big court battle. I doubt that would please you. 

The concept of co-branding is fairly popular on the web as it is a good way to produce positive revenues. Contact me today at 619-637-6043 to learn more about getting an agreement in place. 

Richard A. Chapo, Esq.