WebsiteAs the owner of a website, you get to set the terms and conditions by which the site can be used by third parties. To do so, you need website terms of use. 

I am constantly amazed when webmaster shy away from putting terms of use on their sites. The purpose of said terms is not to protect the visitors to the site; it is to protect YOU! If someone gave you free car insurance, would you take it? Sure you would. Well, this is essentially the same thing with terms for your website. 

What do terms do for you? They define your relationship with visitors. The default position of the law gives these people a lot of rights. These rights can be invalidated however. The way to do this is with your terms. Let's look at an example. 

A consumer product comes with certain warranties. These warranties assert the product will work in a particular way. You might be surprised to learn a website is considered a product under this definition. If your site fails for some reason such as the servers being attacked and a person cannot get to their information, you can be held liable unless you include a waiver of warranty in your terms. Yes, even though the server problem was not caused by you. With properly drafted terms of use, you can keep this from happening. 

If you charge for anything on your site, you also need to define the rules of billing in your terms and conditions. Will you give refunds? If so, for how long and under what conditions? What about including clauses that define whether disputes first have to go to arbitration before any lawsuit can be filed? How about trying to include a clause that says the offended person [and there are plenty of people on the web just dying to be offended!] must sue in your location instead of theirs? If they have to fly across the country, the chances of them proceeding with a lawsuit is greatly reduced to say the least. There are numerous other issues that need to be addressed in a properly drafted terms of use, which is why they often seem so long. Again, these are for your benefit!

Have you copied the terms of use from another site and put them on your site? Yes, I am aware this happens…a lot. The basic idea seems to be that having something up is better than having nothing up. Sadly, this is a mistaken assumption. You are actually better with nothing for a couple of reasons. Let's take a look at them.

The first reason is you are infringing on someone's copyright when you copy terms from their site. How do you think the lawyer who wrote those terms is going to react when he or she finds out what you've done? You might as well dress in raw meat and go poke grizzly bears to get a feel for how they are going to react. You are inviting a legal disaster of epic proportions. 

The second problem with this approach is you now have complex and detailed terms of use on your site. Unfortunately, you have no clue what the say or require. You could be agreeing to anything from a one year refund policy to a guarantee the visitor will make a billion dollars by using your marketing method. Agreeing to something you've never read is just not a smart move. 

I'll be the first to admit that terms of use for a website are not exactly the sexiest of things. That being said, they are designed for the benefit of site owners so use them! To get yours, contact me today at 619-637-6043.

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