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Saturday, 18 March 2017 10:06

Website Legal Terms and Policies - What are they and which should i use?

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We have all seen the terms and conditions pages and privacy policies on websites, most of us have not read them but they are an important part in protecting yourself from litigation from people on the internet and it helps set out a framework on how interactions between your website and the end user should occur. So you have made a website and you know you need to add them, but what now?

What do all the different terms mean? / What are they all for?

There are many different polices that I have come across so before you decide what you want on your website I should outline the main policies and what they are for below.

Terms and Conditions can be used as a blanket term or a specific policy. If you are running a website that provides pricing information, advice or any other service, you may want to consider adding a Terms and Conditions page or similiar page. This can absolve you of responsibility if anyone mistakenly uses your information for the wrong purposes, or wants to hold you liable for damages they have incurred by using your website or its information. Some other useful functions of a Terms and Conditions page is:

  • Website terms and conditions give information about a websites content and how visitors are and are not permitted to use it. https://www.rocketlawyer.co.uk/documents-and-forms/website-terms-and-conditions.rl#
  • Help protect your website and its users with clear and fair website terms and conditions. These terms and conditions for a website set out key issues such as acceptable use, privacy, cookies, registration and passwords, intellectual property, links to other sites, termination and disclaimers of responsibility. Terms and conditions are used and necessary to protect a website owner from liability of a user relying on the information or the goods provided from the site then suffering a loss. 
  • A Terms and Conditions agreement is the agreement that includes the terms, the rules and the guidelines of acceptable behavior, plus other useful sections, to which users must agree in order to use or access your website and mobile app. 
  • Sample Terms and Conditions Template - TermsFeed - This article describes what terms and conditions are,

According to some, the name of the contract does not matter and that perhaps is why there are so many variations for the same thing, but read my thoughts below. You can call the contract what you want as it is a contract between you and the customer but I would stick with these rules because a good lawyer could say you tried to confuse the end user if the name was to different from what the contents purpose was.

 

Here is a non-exhaustive list of the different names of policies and terms:

The descriptions below are not the absoulte meaning of the titles because of the interchangability but I feel they are an apt description of what they are for.

  • Terms and Conditions
    • Can be used as a blanket term or a specific policy terms.
  • Terms and Conditions of Business
    • The orginal term for doing business as Brick and Mortar
  • Terms of Service (TOS)
    • A “Terms of Service” is also known as TOS. It is a set of rules that users should agree with whenever they engage in the use of a product or service. In some instances, it can serve as a disclaimer under some conditions like website use. A “Terms of Service” has different sections like user rights, responsibilities, definitions and disclaimers. http://www.termsgenerator.net/terms-of-service-generator/
    • These are distinct from terms and conditions of business which are concerned with the e-commerce aspects of selling goods or services online, rather than the way in which a website is used. Any businesses with an online presence must include certain details in order to abide by the Electronic Commerce Regulations. Website terms and conditions are the best place to include such information. Ensuring that your users understand the limitations of how they can use any website content, including text, images, videos and music, helps to secure your intellectual property. 
    • What Is a Term of Agreement Page and How to Write It? | Terms Generator
  • Terms of Use (TOU) / Terms of website use / Terms and conditions of use
    • This is effectively the same as a 'Terms of Service' but with a prose/title written from the users role. 
    • A Terms of Use agreement can be used for websites, SaaS apps, mobile apps, Facebook apps, APIs and more. The purpose of a Terms of Use is to set the rules to which your users must agree to in order to use your website, mobile app, API etc. https://termsfeed.com/blog/sample-terms-of-use-template/#Download_Terms_of_Use_Template
    • While a Terms of Use is recommended to have, it’s not mandatory by law as the Privacy Policy agreement is required.
    • Sample Terms of Use Template - TermsFeed - This article describes what terms of use are
  • Terms and conditions of supply / Terms of Supply
    • This is the name that can be given to a policy covering the supply of goods or service
  • Terms of sale
  • Privacy Policy
    • Privacy Policy outlines some or all the ways how your company gathers, uses, discloses, and manages a customer's or your visitor's data It's a legal document to protect a customer's or visitor's privacy.   http://termsandconditionstemplate.com/privacy-policy-generator/
    • Why do I need a privacy policy? - Unlike with website terms, privacy policies may be required by law, depending on where you operate. In any case, it’s good practice to have one, especially if you collect any sort of private data from your users (eg. personal details, contact details, account info, cookies). Additionally, you may need a privacy policy statement to use third-party services like Instagram, or to list your app in a commercial marketplace like Google Play. http://getterms.io/
  • Cookie Policy
  • Disclaimer
    • Many bloggers and website owners around the Internet get paid for their content, so their opinion or articles could have a slight bias. A disclosure policy lets your readers know exactly how you are compensated and how that affects your articles and services. This makes your readers more comfortable with the content you provide.
    • You need a disclaimer on your website to reduce your significant legal risks, as well.
    • You need a disclaimer so as to be able to at least have some claim to a defense. 
    • This is needed on Blogs just incase you make a mistake.
    • A dislaimer can be used to make an explicit disclaimer against information or product that you supply where you what iot to be absolutely clear that you can not be held liably.
      ie Nothing on this site shall be considered legal advice and no attorney-client relationship is established. docracy.com
  • Refund Policy
    • This is just simple your companys policy on how and when a customer qualifies for a refund and what obligations they have. This is useful in the UK and EU where we have the Distance Selling Regulations (DSR) where it is required that the customer is aware of the return conditions before purchase.
  • DMCA
    • By following the “safe harbor” provisions of the DMCA, a website or blog owner acknowledges that if a copyright holder believes there is infringing material on the website, then the website owner will remove it if the copyright holder provides proper notice as specified in the DMCA. The notice also prevents people from abusing website owners with fictitious, unsubstantiated requests. https://disclaimertemplate.net/
    • If you operate a website or blog where you have member-posted content, you need to have a DMCA Takedown Notice on your website to help protect yourself from both copyright holders and your members.
    • Has Your Blog Content Been Copied? A DMCA Takedown Notice May Help | Affiliate Playground - An article about the DMCA procedure
    • Dealing with website content theft | SEQ Legal - An article about content theft iwth an interesting point reguarding the UK and DMCA

T&C, TOS, TOU, are they the same?

The following articles all point towards them all being the same

  • Contractual term - Wikipedia - When you search on Wikipedia for Terms and Conditions you are redirected to this page telling you it is a contractual term.
  • Terms of service - Wikipedia - Opens with "Terms of service (also known as terms of use and terms and conditions, commonly abbreviated as ToS or TOS and TOU)"
  • Term of Service vs. Terms of Use vs. Terms and Conditions - This is one of the first links that comes up in any of the search engines, it is short but to the point with examples.
  • Terms of Service - Priori Legal - This is an article with an example Terms of Service written by a lawyer. In his opening statement he says how all of these terms are the same.
  • Terms and Conditions - Priori Legal - This is an article with an example Terms of Service written by a lawyer. In his opening statement he says how all of these terms are the same.
  • Sample Terms of Use Template - TermsFeed - This article under the section What is a Terms of Use is says because this agreement simply acts as a contract between you, the company, and the users that are using or accessing your website or mobile app, the agreement can be named as you’d like:
    • Terms of Use (ToU)
    • Terms of Service (ToS)
    • Terms and Conditions (T&C)
    • User Agreement
    • Conditions of Use
  • On Termsfeed Terms & Condition Template/Terms of Service Template/Terms of Use Template are all exactly the same.

My Thoughts

Original before the internet this contract between you and the customer was called Terms and Conditions of Business which was then shortend to Terms and Conditions. This is what should be used for Bricks and Mortar business that primarily deal with a physical product. It should be noted that when you search for Terms and Conditions on Wikipedia that you are redirected to a page called Contractural term, which it probably is rather than a document name. Now we are in the age internet, people are still using Terms and Conditions to denote their agreement with the end user. I however feel that because you deliver things through a website, whether you deliver a physical product or not, maybe just a blog or advice, you are offering a service! This means that you should use Terms of Service. But what about Terms of Use I hear you say? Terms of Use is just another prose of Terms of Service instead of looking at it from the website or companies side you have looked at things from the user's point of view, or at least that is what the name implies. These terms are all interchangable in this modern world even thought I am not 100% convinced when you arbitrarily choose one of these terms it is the correct one, hence my musings here. The title must make sense to the policy it entitles.

It does now seem that Terms of Service is the most popular term name for websites. I have read some advice just to call the document Terms and not add any of the other ancillary words, I would perhaps refrain from that so the customer and laywers know what you meant. You can quite happily call the hyperlink Terms but give the document a proper title. 

 

 

Building your Legal Polices layout on your website and adding these to you website

There are a couple of different parts to consider when you want to add legal policies to your website.

  • Layout on the website
    • Hyperlink
    • Page URL
    • Main Page/Article/<h1> Title
    • Sub Titles/Sections/Clauses/<h2>
    • Do you require a EU Cookies Policy
  • Type of website (Interactive website/ecommerce/bricks and mortar)
  • Physical location, USA/UK/EU etc..
  • The actual policies required (Terms and conditions / Privacy Policy / EU Cookies Policy etc..)

There are that many different variations used on websites all over the internet but no real standard on how to layout your 'Terms and Conditions' and 'Privacy Policy' and even how to actually layout out those policies. What I hope to achieve in this article is show you how to configure all these different parts based on your business model and website by following rules I set down in the following sections giving rise to a standard.

When filling in these documents consider using an email that is not your primary address so if spammers get hold of it you can chnage the email on the policies easily. I am not sure about the legalities of this and in fairness i do think it will cause any issue sunless you are in the middle of communication for an issue and even then the email address will  be available. Use something like privacy2015@quantumwarp.com and then you can change the year if needed without killing of your main email address.

 

1) Hyperlink and Page URL

The hyperlink is the first thing a customer will look for on the home page when looking for the terms and conditions. In the USA the privacy policy law states that there should be a link on the homepage (if not all) with the word ‘Privacy’ prominently part of it pointing to the sites privacy policy. There does not seem to be a similar directive for 'terms and conditions' but we shall use the same model and even though this is a USA law there is no harm applying it to the rest of the world.

If in the UK/EU you need to select whether you want a single privacy page incorporating your  cookies policy and privacy policy or if you want them as seperate pages. If you have lots of cookie information then maybe having a seperate cookies policy page.

This table will help you how decide how to build your hyperlinks for your Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions pages link to your terms page. Select the relevant rows for your scenarion below, considering:

  • Country
  • Hyperlink Text
  • UK/EU single/separate cookie and privacy policy page(s)

This will result in giving you the hyperlink that matches your ciscumstances.

  Selection Result  
 

Country

Hyperlink Anchor Text

Page Slug / SEF URL

Notes

1

All

Terms & Conditions

../terms

All policies would be listed in their own right here i.e. ‘Terms of Service’. (i) single page with all listed (ii) a holding page with links to all of the polices (ideal if too large) – both will have paragraphs at the top saying they all form part of a single agreement

Use ‘&’ instead of ‘and’ in the hyperlink text to make it shorter. This is the most common but is optional

2

All

Terms Of Service

../terms

Only use this if you need to be very specific. If you use this then i would recommend the resultant page must be titled 'Terms of Service' otherwise it could be confuding

3

All

Terms

../terms

Use this when there is not a lot of real estate

 

        

4

USA/Rest of World

Privacy

../privacy

Use this when there is not a lot of real estate

5

USA/Rest of World

Privacy Policy

../privacy

  

6

UK/EU

Privacy

../privacy

Use this when there is not a lot of real estate

7

UK/EU

Privacy Policy

../privacy

Do I need cookies in the link?)

8

UK/EU

Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy & Cookies

../privacy

both policies on one page

 

        

9

UK/EU

Privacy Policy

../privacy

separate page (opt)

10

UK/EU

Cookies Policy

../cookies

separate page (opt)

Notes

  • Where page real estate is short, you can use the shortend hyperlink anchor text : ‘Privacy’, ‘Terms’, ’Cookies’ (optional)
  • google.com does not mention cookies in a hyperlink anywhere on hompage. the cookies policy is part of the privacy policy so perhaps you do not need a link specifically for the cookies policy. Seems to be the case.
  • A separate cookies page could be useful if there is a lot of information and/or you develop apps like ITV that then use your domain/website
  • These rules are good across different languages
  • The content and its page title can change without affecting the logic
  • To be compliant with US privacy laws  the word Privacy must be promiscuous, very visible and on the home page

My Selection

  • Terms Hyperlink (option 1)
    • 'Terms & Conditions' for the hyperlink anchor text
    • ../terms for the page slug
    • the use of ampersand keeps the link shorter
    • This seems to be the most popular options and does not tie me to using ‘Terms of service’ on the ../terms page
    • It allows me to change the terms at a later date without having to change the hyperlink
    • It is well recognised in the USA and UK
    • I have enough room for the full anchor text
  • Privacy Hyperlink (option 8)
    • 'Privacy & Cookies' for the hyperlink anchor text
    • ../privacy for the page slug
    • I have enough room for the full anchor text
    • It is well recognised in the USA and UK
    • I did not want a separate cookies page
  • Cookies Hyperlink (n/a)
    • I did not want a separate cookies page so this is not needed

 

2) Terms and Conditions Page Layout

We have identified your hyperlink and page slug for your selected scenario. We now need to establish the actual layout of the content, titles and sections which can be just as complex unless someone just tells you what they would do.

I have seperated this process out in to 2 sections, Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy to keep things logical as they have different thought processes and are held on different pages. In this section we will deal with the Terms and Conditions page.

Page Title

We now need to select the option by your type of business model because this has the biggest influence for the page name.

This table will help you decide how to name and layout your page titles for Terms and Conditions.

  Selection Result  

 

Type of Business

<h1> / Primary Title / Page Title

Rename TOS policy to ?

and add it as a subthing (<h2> Section / hyperlink / clause ) to the main policy as defined by the page title

Notes

1

Non-interactive website

Disclaimer

x

Add disclaimer only, you do not really need a 'Terms of Service'. You can use option 2 if you do want one.

2

Interactive Website Only

Terms of Service

x

All rules can be put in the TOS as clauses

3

Website + e-commerce

Terms of Service

Terms of Website Use

All rules can be put in the TOS as clauses

4

Website + e-commerce + Bricks and Mortar

Terms and Conditions / Terms of Service
(this is one title)

Terms of Website Use

  

5

Bricks and Mortar only

Terms and Conditions

Terms and Conditions of Business

Terms and Conditions of Sale

x

  

Notes

  • 'Terms of Website Use' is used under 'Terms of Service' to keep the policy as the singule document that can be accepted and the sections are easily identified to their area of cover.
  • If unsure you could just use Terms and Conditions / Terms of Service as page title.
  • The page title (as can the policies) can always be changed at a later date to match your needs. Users would need updating as per your outlined policies (ie. By email, modify date at bottom of the T&Cs, by triggering users to re-agree to terms next time they login)
  • Notice the use of ampersand, this keeps the link shorter but you can use ‘and’ if you want

My Selection

Option 4

  • The combined title prevent misunderstanding and utilses the 2 most common names for this contract
  • It is universal and easy to understand
  • The TOS can easily be expanded
  • The website use terms still under the single policy are in a clear section

Page Layout

The link, page(s) and title(s) are now set. You have a couple of options that you can use to display your content not. These are the variations of layouts that you can apply to your terms page when you require more than a TOS, such as terms-of-sale which includes DSR (EU regulation, Distance Selling Regulation) to be accepted or displayed.

Example subthing names, these now come into play.

  • Terms of Website Use
  • Terms and Conditions of Sale
  • Returns Policy

Subthings is the name I have given to the <h2> sections/hyperlinks/clauses reference points within the terms and conditions we are building here. You will use these containers once you have decided which you prefer

These are the available layouts and their pros/cons. This section is more about personal preference.

This is dealing with layout and sub title stuff, everything else is done.

  Selection Selection Result  

 

Terms page type

Subthing policy type:

 

<h2>Sections

Hyperlinks

Clauses

Example sites

Notes

1

1 page

1 policy

Clauses

  x

Probably not suitable if you are adding a lot of extra policies, you will need to make sure that all of the new clauses numbers match with the pre-exisiting policy, but ideal for small personal sites with interaction.

2

1 page

1 policy

<h2> Sections

x

All policy areas are added as <h2> sections under the main <h1> title of that page so they is 1 policy to agree too. There must be a maintained hierarchy

You could add the sections as extra clauses in the Terms, but adding a <h2> section is cleaner when adding another policy so you don’t have to change all of the rerferences

3

1 page

1 policy

Hyperlinks

Argos

All policy areas are added as sections under the main title of that page so they are 1 policy to agree too. There must be a maintained hierarchy. However, other policy terms can hyperlinked (ideal when they are long) with a paragraph at the beginning of the policy telling you of this.

4

1 page

1 policy

Clauses

<h2> Sections

Hyperlinks

  x

A combination of all 3 ways to add additional policies and conditions is possible but just be careful to keeps things organised.

5

1 Index page

Multiple policies

hyperlinks

Zen Internet

When you have many terms and conditions you can list all of your terms and policies here as hyperlinks

You might struggle having it agreed someone accepting these terms by pointing to this page. The TOS would be on its own page in this scenario.

Paragraph saying all of these make up the terms and conditions?

Notes

  • These ideas could potentially be transliterated onto the privacy and cookie pages but is not necessary.
  • 1 page is better as it is clear that this is what the user agreed to and can be pointed to by most software with the ability to select 1 page of terms to accept.

My Selection

Option 2

  • single policy with multple sections is easy to manage
  • can easyily be accepted as a single TOS
  • easy to expand

 

3) Privacy / 'Privacy and Cookie Policies' Page Layout

We now have identified your hyperlink and page slug for your selected scenario. We now need to establish the actual layout of the content, titles and sections which can be just as complex unless someone just tells you what they would do.

I have seperated this process out in to 2 sections, Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy to keep things logical as they have different thought processes and are held on different pages. In this section we will deal with the Privacy Policy page.

the layout of these polciies is much simplier. so the decision process is much simplier

This table will help you decide how to name and layout your page title(s) for the Cookies and Privacy policies. consider:

  • Country
  • Single or Multiple pages for your policies (should of already been decided in stage 1)
  Selection Result  

 

Type

<h1> / Primary Title / Page Title

<h2> Titles 

Notes

1

USA/Rest of world

Privacy Policy

x

x

2

UK Single Page

1 policy

Privacy and Cookies Policy

x

If you get a pre-done policy for the UK with Cookies as part of it, just fill in the information and you are done

3

UK Single Page

1 policy

2 sections

Privacy and Cookies Policy

Privacy

Cookies

This allows you to get a good privacy policy yet use a cookie audit tool that generates it’s own cookie policy (atticat) and add them together easily. Also makes updating easy because you don’t have to merge them, just replace.

4

UK Single Page

2 polices

Privacy and Cookies Policies

Privacy Policy

Cookies Policy

You might consider changing the hyperlink anchor text to ‘Privacy’ with this option.

5

UK 2 Pages

Privacy

Privacy Policy

x

If your Privacy Policy mentions Cookies then add a link to your cookies page saying more info available and that the Cookies Policy is part of the Privacy Policy.

6

UK 2 Pages

Cookies

Cookies Policy

x

x

Notes

  • You only need a Cookies Policy in the UK/EU
  • If you choose to have a separate Cookies and Privacy Policy either on a single or multiple pages, then you should at least have a clause as (or similiar) below to show acceptance of the cookies policy. You should  also remove any cookie clauses in the privacy policy to prevent confusion. 
    1.2    By using our website and agreeing to this policy, you consent to our use of cookies in accordance with the terms of our Cookies Policy.
  • Only use a separate Cookies Policy page if you use lots of cookies that need identifying

My Selection

Option 3

  • Single Page (UK)
    • Less pages to manage
    • I don’t have a lot of cookies on my site
    • Less links on my homepage
    • Google only has a single policy integrating cookies
    • I am in the UK and need a cookies policy
  • Single Policy 2 Sections (UK)
    • 2 sections so I can easily manage updates to the policies
    • I can use the atticat cookie audit tool to generate a cookie policies with all the reference cookies as needed rather than doing it manually.
    • I also have a really good privacy policy where I can remove the cookie section
    • I am in the UK and need a cookies policy
    • I removed the cookie clauses/section from my Privacy Policy
    • I modified a clause (1.2) that says by accepting the privacy policy I also accepted the cookies policy. This is required so the cookies policy is refrenced in the privacy policy.
    • only had to change the title heirarchy slightly

 

4) Creating your Terms and Conditions content

Terms and conditions are usually very specific to your website and sometimes your country and state. There is a lot of common statements such as liability and do not hack my website. I have use the phrase Terms and Conditions throughout this article to loosely reference this section. As you know many websites call their terms different things and then these terms might include more things that the Terms of Service. In the tables above you have decided what actuall polices you want on your site so i will try and make the following instructions as general as possible so the workflow is the same (or as close to) for all options.

To start with these are the recommended sources. I will refer to the following documents as Terms of Service

  • UK - SEQ Legal (static document)- see my building notes below on how to convert to HTML
  • USA - termsofservicegenerator.com (generator)- This is the sister document to the one from freeprivacypolicy.com. This is not free, but dont take the first offer, you can get it cheaper by going through freeprivacypolicy.com and saying no thanks twice.

For more sources see the links section, for both generators and static documents.

Once you have the Terms of Service by filling in the document by following the instructions or by using the generator wizard

  • Convert to HTML
  • Modify the Title to match your selection (ie. 'Terms of Website Use' and <h2> vs 'Terms of Service' and <h1>)
  • Edit the relevant page on your website for your Terms of Service
  • Add the Primary page title <h1>
  • copy and paste the generated HTML into the page
  • modify any links in the Terms of Service that reference the Privacy Policy or Cookies Policy to match your configuration.
  • save page

Optional

  • You now need to add in all other policies as clauses/sections/hyperlinks as per your selection.
  • Add in the additional paragraphs to denote hyperlinks as included in the policy

 

5) Creating your Privacy Policy content

We now have the page created for your privacy policy and the titles we are going to use but we need content. Do not just go and copy and paste content from the internet as this violates copyright and the privacy policy would most likely not be correct for your website. There are many websites where you can get privacy policies for your website legally but I will outline the recommend ones below:

For more sources see the links section, for both generators and static documents.

Once you have the Privacy Policy by filling in the document by following the instructions or by using the generator wizard

  • Convert to HTML
  • Modify the Title to match your selection (ie. 'Privacy' and <h2> vs 'Privacy Policy' and <h1>)
  • Edit the relevant page on your website for your privacy policy
  • Add the Primary page title <h1>
  • copy and paste the generated HTML into the page
  • save page

 

6) Creating your UK/EU Cookies Policy content

If you are in the UK or the EU you need a Cookies Policy. You can either have this on the same page as the privacy policy as a section or a seperate policy or it can be on its own page. With any of these options the process is the same except how you alter the page and section titles as required.

  • Run the Atticat Free cookie audit tool in the chrome browser. This will do what irt says and audit all the cookies you use and generate a HTML cookie policy.
  • Copy the generated HTML cookies policy to the selected location (Section on the Privacy Page/Seperate Policy on the Privacy Page/Standalone cookie page)
  • Modify the Title(s) to match your selection (Section on the Privacy Page/Seperate Policy on the Privacy Page/Standalone cookie page), make sure you adjust both the names and <h1><h2>... as needed.

For more sources see the links section, for both generators and static documents.

 

7) DMCA Page (optional)

The DMCA allows communities to be protected from users posting copyrighted materials on the site as long as that website operates a DMCA policy to remove the content as per the rules they set down. It might be an obligation to show this via a page with a DMCA decalration on it. I am not sure whether is 100% required but it doe snot harm to have it on just incase.

If you operate a website or blog where you have member-posted content, you need to have a DMCA Takedown Notice on your website to help protect yourself from both copyright holders and your members.

Firstly aquire a policy:

For more sources see the links section, for both generators and static documents.

Now follow these simple instructions:

  • Create a page entitled DMCA / DMCA Policy on your website
  • make its slug ../dmca
  • Get a DMCA policy edit it as per the instructions
  • Once edited, paste it into the page and save it
  • Done

If you do receive a DMCA Takedown request, just take the material down straight away. These companies will have a lot money and resources than you.

My Selection

  • DisclaimerTemplate.com
    • really easy to edit
    • not sure if it 100% compatible with UK law but it cannot harm to say you will remove the dodgy content

8) Done

You have now added terms and conditions to your website with a decent organisation standard and hopefully some really good content. I would encourage to review your terms and conditions and privacy policy on a regular basis to make sure you are still compliant. If you are a good sized company, and you have completed this process perhaps get a lawyer to check everything out or supply some specific terms.

 

 

Building my Policy Content / What I did (UK) 

Instuctions for SEQ Document / Page Preperation

These are my instructions to get the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy I have used on this site from SEQ Legal, how to lay them out and why.

Firstly these instructions are my interactive website based in the UK.

Resources I used

Preparing the Documents from SEQ Legal

Editing the SEQ Documents

This process should be done for all of the SEQ documents you are going to use on your site.

  • create a copy of the  SEQ legal document and prefix it MY- (so you can have disticnt copies and not get mixed up)
  • open your MY- copy of the document
  • remove the intro page and the draft notes at the bottom
  • open the orginal copy of the document and scroll down to the drafting notes. this is so you can have them next to you while you follow the instructions and edit your document as needed. The notes are very useful and should be read.
  • Follow these Editing Notes
    1. The optional sections you do not use, use strikethrough, do not delete
    2. when there is an OR statement, the one(s) you do not use you should be strikethrough and not deleted
  • Now proceed through the document as per the included SEQ Legal instructions
  • save

Once edited, we no need to transfer this into a html document/web page

  • select all of the document and copy and paste this into a WYSIWYG (i use JCE editor in Joomla)
  • the text will now be converted into html
  • go through and delete all of the striketrhough text and sections
  • select all of the text and click both 'Cleanup HTML' and 'Remove Formating' which will take all of the document back to standard HTML but with no formating
  • we now need to add the formatting back in
    1. make the main title <h2> and add an anchor of 'terms-and-conditions-of-use' or 'privacy-policy' etc..
    2. go through the text and bold all of the headings (i.e. 1., 2. , 3. etc..)
    3. find the italic sections and make them italic again, most likely personal/company information
    4. To keep the list items in the document with the correct reference on them i.e.(a), (f) etc.. and to make them proper HTML List items we need to follow these instructions:
      1. select each group of list items and click on the Circle List item menu. This will convert the list into a list with circles before the (a), (b), (c) etc..
      2. now view the source code of the document and copy this into Notepad++
      3. in notepad++ do a text search and replace: circle --> none
      4. copy the new text from Notepad++ back into the source code page of the WYSIWYG
      5. return to the normal WYSIWYG window
      6. You will no have <li> lists with the original document references but no circle bullet points
  • add the last edited date at the bottom, in blod and italics e.g. Terms and Conditions Last Edited on 2017-03-21
  • you could make a backup of the new html if you wanted.

Create Terms and Conditions Page

  • Create the page Terms and Conditions with the alias of https://quantumwarp.com/terms
  • Publish the article on the home page in the legal menu at the bottom, present on all pages.
  • Prepare the HTML version of the SEQ Website terms and conditions
  • Paste this code in to the Joomla article
  • Change the primary title to Terms of Service
  • Save and close

Create Privacy & Cookies Policy Page (single page)

Create page

  • Create the page Privacy and Cookies Policy with the alias of https://quantumwarp.com/privacy
  • Edit the joomla article and add the primary title of Privacy and Cookies Policy
  • Publish the article on the home page in the legal menu at the bottom, present on all pages.

Adding Privacy section/policy

  • Prepare the HTML version of the SEQ Privacy Policy
  • Edit the Joomla article
  • Paste this code in to the Joomla article, below the primary title
  • rename the title Privacy Policy to Privacy and set to <h2>
  • Save

Adding Cookies section/policy

  • Edit the Joomla article
  • Edit clause 1.2 in the Privacy Policy to reference the cookies policy we are creating here. so it reads as follows
    1.2    By using our website and agreeing to this policy, you consent to our use of cookies in accordance with the terms of our Cookies Policy.
  • in clause 1.2 I made the 'privacy and cookies policy' hyperlinked to the 'Privacy and Cookies Policy'. This is not mandatory.
  • Delete Section 13.0 from the Privacy Policy Section (should of already been deleted). This is the section that deals with cookies
  • Run Atticat cookie policy generator and paste the results after the Privacy Policy Section. The code is already outputed as clean HTML.
  • Paste this code in to the Joomla article, below the Privacy section/policy adjusting title heirarchy as needed (each <h> tag will need increasing by 1 so that Cookies In Use on This Site is set to <h2>
  • Rename Cookies In Use on This Site to Cookie Policy / Cookies In Use on This Site
  • Save

Cookie Consent Popup

I installed the  Cookie Consent ATOM from inspire theme for getting cookie consent notification.

Create DMCA Page

I created a page as per the instructions above but added the following sentence (with hyperlink)  so as to facilitate easier contact. I am not sure if this breaks the contract in any way but I would like the least amount of hassle, so i would just remove the offending content.

You may contact us via the contact form so we can deal with this issue.

Additonal Options

I added the following clause so it is easier at a later date to expand my Terms & Conditions / Terms of Service. This statement also get the user to acknowledge that hyperlinked sections are part of the TOS.

This website is operated by Bob Marley (referred to as "QuantumWarp/we/our/us"). As user of this website (referred to as "you/your") you acknowledge that any use of this website including any transactions you make ("use/using") is subject to our terms and conditions below (which includes any other important hyper-linked sections e.g. Privacy & Cookies Policy.

The following policies form the Terms of Service, this is the contract between you and us for using our website or services and the purchasing of products or services.

Notes

Atticat Cookies Policy Generator

  • Use atticat chrome addin. It audits the cookies and give you a nice policy already preformatted (http://www.attacat.co.uk/resources/cookies)
  • If you think you are going to use it, say yes. like i am not using a/b marketing now but I might. If i answer yes I dont have to go back and consitently alter my policy
  • Most questions probably should be answered yes.
  • Embedding a youtube video is a 3rd party service usage
  • If you use a cookies template you still have to find all the cookies and populate it, hence why this tool is great.

SEQ Privacy Policy

  • This policy does mention goods
    • (d) send you goods purchased through our website;
    • (e) [supply to you services purchased through our website];
  • 9.3 - I added notify you by updating the modification date
  • 13. Cookies - I removed this section as I was using Atticat Generator
  • 14. I am not registered as a data controller
  • 15.2 altered to 'This site operates under the Jurisdiction of England and Wales.'

SEQ Terms and condition of Use

  • From the notes: this document includes provisions covering user accounts and user-generated content (although the latter are not as detailed as in some of our more sophisticated website terms and conditions documents).
  • Rename 'Terms and conditions of use' to 'Terms of Service' ? (most things say TOS)
  • 4.1(e) - [use [our website services] by means of a web browser], I need to alter this if I have extra services
  • 5.1 - use data collected from our website for any direct marketing activity (including without limitation email marketing, SMS marketing, telemarketing and direct mailing). - I think this implies a 3rd party and not me
  • 8.2 can close your account - not sur joomla has an option for this.
  • 9.2 - this controls the re-use of the user submitted content
  • 14.2 - I selected the options to change the terms and conditions withou notification - when going it would be good to change this to notification by email and that the modification date at the bottom
  • 14.3 - if user has given specific consent to the TOS then if the TOS change we will ask you again for consent
  • 18.1 - 'privacy and cookies policy' changed to 'privacy and cookies policies' - also in more than one place - ,maybe change it to this 

 

 

Additional Options for Terms

After building your Terms of Service / Terms and Conditions you might find that you need to add a few extra options, policies or terms that are not covered in my article but none the less are very useful. I will outline the ones I have come across here:

Implicit Consent and Hyperlinked Sections

The following statement adds implicit acceptance of tetms by just usign the site and it also denotes hyperlinked sections are included in the terms by hyperlinking sections and further makes this clear by giving a short list of examples.

You can of course alter this to just promote either Implicit Consent or Hyperlinked Sections

This website is operated by Bob Marley (referred to as "QuantumWarp/we/our/us"). As user of this website (referred to as "you/your") you acknowledge that any use of this website including any transactions you make ("use/using") is subject to our terms and conditions below (which includes any other important hyper-linked sections e.g. How to use this website, Returns and refunds, and Privacy policy. In addition, you will find other useful information within Customer services. Please:

  • read through these terms and conditions carefully before using this website.
  • print a copy for future reference.
  • also read our Privacy policy section regarding your personal information.

Transaction Clause

Not all Terms of Service will come with a clause like this or indeed any e-commerce clauses. This clause is a vehicle to be able to attach other terms and conditions to your primary Terms of Service document and still allow end users to explicitly except it. You can if needed, also hyperlink 'terms and conditions of supply' and/or alter the name of the document being included. You are also not limited to adding just this one clause, you can add further clauses like this or modified clauses following the same basic layout.

Transactions concluded through our site

Contracts for the supply of [goods OR services OR information] formed through our site or as a result of visits made by you are governed by our terms and conditions of supply.

USA Specific Laws / Policies

If your company is located in the USA and/or your website is hosted in the USA (not 100% about this) then you need to comply with their rules and laws. I am not sure how international law matters are handled in reguards to this as to which regions laws are applied. These extra rules are mailny to do with the Privacy Policy, I am not sure if there are any specific changes required to the Terms of Service.

To make things easy you could add compliance for all of the laws and polices that are required for the USA (including the California ones) and this should not adversely you current privacy policy as these extra policies are usually on top of what is already there.

The extra Privacy Rules are:

  • Information Protection
  • Cookies (not to an EU level just that they are used)
  • Third-party Disclosure
  • Third-party links
  • Google (including DART and some other stuff)
  • CalOPPA
  • COPPA
  • Fair Information Practices
  • CAN-SPAM Act of 2003

You can read my 'Privacy Policy Notes' for further information or just use Google as these are well known rules. My advice would be to generate a Privacy Policy with freeprivacypolicy.com as this is upto date with all of the rules and is USA centric.

 Other Things you can add to your TOS

  • Linking Policy - not used so much nowadays but can be useful to describe how other people can link to your site and how you link from your site. This can quite easily be part of your TOS.
  • Trademarks - Trademark protection is very useful. This give information how you allow the use of your trademakrk and in what circumstances it is allowed.

 

Notes

In this section I will add the notes I made but did not need to go in the instructions or elsewhere in this article.

Dont use your primary email for these online policy documents just incase spammers get hold of it, use something like privacy2015@quantumwarp.com and then you can change the year if needed without killing of your main email address.

Privacy Policy Notes

I did these notes whilst using the freeprivacypolicy.com generator to make my Privacy Policy document with it.

  • There seems no specification to a regional/country law, except that most countries require you to have a privacy ploicy and som of the califonian/american law reuire that privacy ploic to have the word 'pricay' in the hyperlink and should be conspicuously i.e. on the home page. the calfifornian ones should be adehered to unless they cause you issues as this is usually the standard
  • There are some references to some american based rules such as CalOPPA COPPA which can be adopted by non-us. If you are in the UK I do not thing you are under any obligation to use the us laws.
  • It covers the following areas:
    • Information Protection
    • Cookies (not to an EU level just that they are used)
    • Third-party Disclosure
    • Third-party links
    • Google (including DART and some other stuff)
    • CalOPPA
    • COPPA
    • Fair Information Practices
    • CAN-SPAM Act of 2003
  • CAN-SPAM (do not need this unless you are want to send unsolicted emails) - i do not really want to put my address on my site
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003
    • It exempts "transactional or relationship messages.
    • only needed if you are sending unsolictied emails
    • There are no restrictions against a company emailing its existing customers or anyone who has inquired about its products or services, even if these individuals have not given permission, as these messages are classified as "relationship" messages under CAN-SPAM.[13] But when sending unsolicited commercial emails, it must be stated that the email is an advertisement or a marketing solicitation. Note that recipients who have signed up to receive commercial messages from you are exempt from this rule.
    • In general the privacy policy is just saying what data you collect and how you use it, the terminology is alomost universal. This piad one covers more ground and is us centric.,

 

Terms and Conditions

  • look at a lawyers website (preferable online law specialists) local to your country and see what they have done. you would expect their site to be correct.
  • When considering your terms and privacy policy the following can affect them:
    • e-commerce
    • Is the site is owned by a company or is a personal project
    • blogs
    • interactive
    • EU
    • US based
    • The rest of the world
  • A generic Terms of Service and Privacy policy is better than non, and makes your site more compliant
  • Embedding a  youtube videos is classed as using a 3rd party service
  • Terms and Conditions - Definatley use these if your site is commercial or a company becaus eit includes leagal terms related to the UK.
  • You would add extra information about paid subscriptions etc.. to Terms of Service
  • Copyright is usually taken care of in the T&Cs
  • Services need contracts - Overview of the Terms and conditions for supply of services to consumers via a website | Rocket Lawyer – very cool answer
  • TOS – addresses the use of your website and the interactions. It would not necessarily cover sales in a shop etc.
  • if you cannot find local terms and condions for you country, use the US ones and possibly alter the jurisdiction to your country. If you are in the EU, add the EU cookie policy on via the Atticat chrome extentions. You might need to use Google Translate to make it into your own language.

 

Acceptance of Terms

Acceptance of terms was a major part of this article and now I want to explain a little more.

There are 2 types of acceptance:

  • Implicit - This means you automatically accept the terms by using the site or service without you haveing to give any specific consent.
    • Argos - See the paragraph at the top.
  • Explicit - To give your explicit consent you must perform an action showing you give permission such as clicking a button or selecting a check box
    • Twitch - When you sign up there is a sentence saying "By clicking Sign Up, you are indicating that you have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy" so when you sign up you have given you Explicit consent
    • ADD another site here where you have to click on a checkbox
    • Joomla  registration with a checkbox

There might be a difference between countries and then depending on what the terms are, you might be required to get explicit consent for the terms to of been deemed as accepted. There is no harm is having the terms implicitely accepted like Argos and then explicitely accepted by the use of a checkbox during registration to your site. This should cover both aspects.

I have read that in American (USA) courts unless a click is made (i.e. accept the terms and conditions checkbox) the acceptance is not likely to be upheld. This is one reason I am striving with these rules so that acceptance is upheld for both UK and US law.  There might be times where implicit terms are accepted in the USA but i do not have any example sites for that.

Enable Acceptance of TOS in Joomla

Joomla is my platform of choice but this particular feature is hidden, Joomla enabling TOS articles:

I have not come across a plugin that will allow me to get users to re-accept the terms and conditions, but this would be useful, also Joomla calls it's terms, terms of use but when you sign up to Joomla it says accept Terms of service

Why a single page is important?

This is another central point of this article was to create rules for laying out the content so that all systems were able to accept the terms. What do I mean with this statement?

Most CMS systems such as Joomla or Wordpress have facilites to accept the Terms of Service (TOS) but you will only have the ability to select one page of terms. This is where my terms rules come into play as all of the different options allowing you to make a single page of terms that can be selected and then accepted. A single page allows you to get explicit consent for all of the terms you require.

The basic rule is that the Terms of Service page should clearly reference all other required terms and policies by hyperlinks with a paragraph saying to the end user that this is the case or that all of the other policies should be part of the singular Terms of Service policy.

Do you need to click to accept terms of sale?

If digital you cn just make this part of your TOS and then is hould not be an issue. When considering Bricks and Mortar businesses I think that you would need to reference it on your invoices and it would be Implicit consent you get because they would get the terms on the invoice after paying or could look them up on your website.

Twitch Legal Document Model

Twitch is an excellent example of a large site and how it handles it slegal documents so that is why I have given it a special mention here. Blow I will outline the main points:

  • The hyper links on the homepage are
  • All Twitch's documents are under the directory/slug https://www.twitch.tv/p/ - This is good if you have lots of documents you can file them all under one directory to keep things neat.
  • Twitch's Terms of Service is their primary terms page and within the second paragraph they referer to other polices including  Terms of Sale and says as such are all incorporated into the Terms of Service. This example proves how you can have 1 TOS that incorporates other policies with merging them, but just by inclusion.
    When using the Twitch Services, you may be subject to any additional posted guidelines or rules applicable to specific services and features that may be posted online from time to time (the “Guidelines”). One example is Twitch's Community Guidelines.  Twitch may also offer certain paid services, which are subject to the Twitch Terms of Sale  as well as any additional terms or conditions that are disclosed to you in connection with such services. All such terms and guidelines are incorporated into these Terms of Service by reference.
  • Their hyperlink policies is not as neat as mine
  • The explicit acceptance of the Terms of Service (which includes other Twitch policies) on Twitch is done by:
    • The fact that when you signup/register on Twitch you have to fill in a form and on this form there is the following statement
    • By clicking Sign Up, you are indicating that you have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
    • To complete your registration you have to click on the 'Sign Up' button which then gives your explicit acceptance of those terms linked.
    • Also should be noted that this could be a way of including other terms and conditions if you absolutely needed to do it this way.
    • Most Terms of Service have references to include the Privacy Policy Twitch in these modern times is just making things a lot more obvious.

Questions

  • Can a website and a bricks and mortar and it's website  be classed as 2 different entities? Is this by default?
  • A note on invoice that the terms are available on the website or print them all on it like Scan (UK)

 

 

Links

The following are links that I helped me figure out my rules and how everything worked.

How to  write your Terms and Conditions

If you really need to write your own terms and condtions then have a look through these guides.

Sources of information

  • SEQ Legal - All of the documents have details notes and there are many articles on this site covering legal matters.
  • Rocket Lawyer - Has articles on various legal things and for each of the documents it has information about what they are for.
  • Docular - For each of the documents it has information about what they are for.
  • Off To See My Lawyer, Legal Advice For Entrepreneurs - For each of the documents it has information about what they are for.
  • e-lawresources.co.uk - A little dated but the information is still good.

Privacy Policy vs Terms and Conditions

Some people get confused between these two documents, I hope these helps.

 

Terms and Condition Monitoring Sites

Large companies are always changing their terms and conditions and these sites help you see what the terms mean and when they change.

  • Terms of Service; Didn't Read - We are a user rights initiative to rate and label website terms & privacy policies, from very good Class A to very bad Class E. Terms of service are often too long to read, but it's important to understand what's in them. Your rights online depend on them. We hope that our ratings can help you get informed about your rights.
  • TOSBack | The Terms-Of-Service Tracker - TOSBack is a collaboration between the EFF, the Internet Society, and ToS;DR. Every day, we check the Terms and Policies of many online services to see if any of them have changed.
  • Docracy Terms of Service and Privacy Policy Tracker - Changes - Using Docracy's unique document change analysis, we are now tracking terms of service and privacy policies for hundreds of the world's top sites.

 

Cookie Audit Tool / Policy Generator

There are some apps out there that you can use to build up a Cookie Policy along with what cookies are actually used. I am not 100% you have to do this anymore.

 

Document Generators

For all of us that do not have lots of money or are not lawyers these generators will be good enough, just give the content a read over once they are created. Lawyers want you to scare you in to spending money that you do not have. The internet is great you can get a document and print it out without ever needed a laywer. When you do earn enought money to warrant the laywer fees (or you can afford it ) then you should get one but until then use a generator.

Some of these generators are by well respected companies (ie. shopify) and if they were complete bollocks they would not offer them. It is true that a generic terms and conditions cannot cover all situations, btu most of them.

You should check the generated content as a lot of them are USA centric and need adapting for the EU and UK, in either case it is always good to read the output to make they are correct for your situation.

  • In some places you can swap state for 'England and Wales'
  • I have used all of these generators listed here to output sample documents.

Generator Articles

Free Generators

  • bennadel.com - Privacy Policy / Terms Of Service Generator. really easy to use, the documents are to the point and not overcomplex. ideal for the small websites. Doesnt have any refence in it for ecommerces
  • Shopify Tools
    • Common: The submission form is the same for refund policy/terms and considtions/privacy policy, all have your full address. All docs are plain text so will need making into html (use a WYSIWYG). Add blockers wi
    • Terms and conditions - this is from a  big company, is country aware and is for an ecommerse site. It does use the supplied email to send you the document. You do not need to be a shopify customer but they do try. It asks if you website uses cookies (obviously it does) but it might asdd a cookie thing on. The emails take a minute or 2 to come through. The email contains a link, not the actual document. The document is indepth but is text only, you will have to make it into html. For some reason the generator reduces lancashire to LAN
    • Privacy Policy - this has a cookie clause, the cookies it mentions will not match yours if you do not use shopify
    • Refund Policy - simple to use
  • termsandconditionstemplate.com
    • Terms and Conditions (make a donation if you want) - you must keep a link on the terms and conditions unless you make a donation, you can give your email to be kept updated whena  new version comes out. The results are supplied in both html and text. They seem quite in depth and warrant a full read. IT does not automnaitcally add a link into their website, you should add this manually?
    • Privacy Policy (make a donation if you want) - There are a lot of selectable options in the privacy policy wizard covering Website Visitors, Personally-Identifying Information, Security, Advertisements, External Links, Google Adwords Remarketing, Aggregated Statistics, Affiliate Disclosure, Cookies, Credit (donate to remove), E-commerce, Business Transfers, Privacy Policy Changes, Protection of Collected Information (recommended for membership sites) = very in-depth. You can add your own custom polices. If you get the captcha wrong it will wipe oout what you have typed, case sensitive and check adblockers causing issue. The policy is supplied in plain text and html
  • getterms.io - Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions (combined) - fill in 3 boxes and click, the output is in html, a good documents, not as in depths as some but it covers all the main stuff.
  • seotoaster.com  - E-commerces Privacy, Terms & Conditions - This is a 7 page wizard. when you click on the finish button it redirects you to the seotaster homepage not the plicy. you have to click back and hope it is still there. Considering it covers all 3 topics it is not very long and you have to aquire the html mnaully. the generator also seems to store the details in apersitnet cookie. dont forget to remove the <div> tags surrounding the policy. i cannot work out if the bit at the top needs to be included aswell
  • termsgenerator.net - This site also has templates and other generators and descriobes the terms. the website has many generators, descriptions and templates.
    • Terms of Service  - easy to read and can include ecommerse, the output is html but you will need a wysiwyg to extract it (seems similiar to seotaoster)
    • Terms of Use -  it contains private policy?
    • Terms and Conditions - there are not many options to configure. the terms are quite lengthy and well written
    • Terms and Conditions Template for Ecommerce Website - Not working yet http://www.termsgenerator.net/ecommerce-website-terms-and-conditions-generator/
    • Privacy Policy - a lot of options to select from, this is quite a good generator. very easy to use
    • Cookie Policy -  2 boxes very easy, the policy is simple and to the point. It is justs text and is not a full audit with specific cookies labelled aprat from the possible use of non specified anayltics
    • Disclaimer -  http://www.termsgenerator.net/disclaimer-generator-tool/, the actual generator is there but a bit hidden,
  • madsubmitter.com
    • Terms and Conditions (remove credit with a donation), has a credit card awareness checkbox, as mention it includes a backlink (fair enough) and the terms cover all of the basics and are well set out.
    • Privacy Policy (remove credit with a donation) has a cedit card awareness checkbox, a failry basic policy which briefly mentions cookies
  • privacypolicyonline.com
    • Common - there are some article son this site about this topic.  It adds a link at the bottom of the plicy but does not say anywhere you have to keep it
    • Privacy Policy  - generate your own Privacy Policy that fills all of the requirements of the leading PPC and Affiliate sites such as Google Adsense, Commission Junction and the most popular sites used for site monetization. has a nice feature to obsucate email address with javascript. this is not needed for joomla. your can generate a doc or html.
    • Disclaimer -  easy to make, short and to the point
    • Terms of Service - very configurable with allsorts of compnay information. make sure that you tick the boxes to iunlcude the information
    • Terms and Conditions - this uises the same apges as above
  • alpineinternet.com
    • Common: is stuck to using USA address, you have to use a wysiwyg and jsbeatifier to ge the html code. The generated html code is a bit messey but nothing terrible. Alpine will also email them to you
    • Privacy Policy - quite a good size policy but  It mentions cookies in a single paragraph.very easy to use. Make sure you swap out the american state in the text because you cannot do it in the generator.
    • Terms and Conditions - Easy to use. covers all the basics and is well set out
    • Return Policy - Easy to use, The policy is only emailed to you
    • Other Generators: Google Analytics Tracked Link Builder, Professional Bio Interview, Organizational History Interview, Professional Services Agreement Generator
  • Legal River: I think this site is dead
    • Terms of Service  - This allows you sleect trerms of service sections (general terms/sales/blog) and also give you a description of these sections. Definately USA centric. NOT WORKING
    • Privacy Policy - NOT WORKING
  • Same1 - All the same Company
  • freeprivacytermsgenerator.com - Terms and Conditions/Privacy Policy Generator (free) - easy to use and a simple wizard. you can download ither as a pdf or as HTML . The html is a little messy but nothing major
  • freeprivacypolicy.com - Privacy Policy (free) - It has options for ecommerce, indepth questionaire incling PCI compliance, SSL, advertising tracking. It has a page for 'CalOPPA - California Online Privacy Protection Act', 'COPPA' and 'FTC's Fair Information Practices'. You can add additional clauses. This is a very indepth privacy ploicy creator. At the end you have to sign up to a newsletter to get your ploicy (fair enough). The policy is then email to you. You are then upsold to buy 'terms of service' for $15. I woul dlike to see the generator first. if you click no thanks it goes to $7. maybe ask them for a demo on terms of service. you can build it before purchase? You are given a username a password and can edit and download your policy. well set out but the html is a little messy but nothing terrible. possibly worth the $7. It also does not describe the single licese very well./ contact them via the live chat. i am sure you can get the $7 deal easy again.
  • Docular - ideal if you only have 1 site

Paid / Freemium Generators

Some of the free sites give you free terms and consitions/privacy policys etc.. but leave out vital parts of the contract unless you pay. Some of these terms left out make them almost pointless so I have added these under paid.

  • TermsFeed  (Freemium) - most needed things are paid for, you 'might' get a useful document if you are an individual running a smalll site, the rest is paid for. The builder wizard seems quite good. It has features like being able to select what country you are in. A paid document can get expensive really quickly. One feature is that I believe it is a pay for once service so when updates to the document are made you are notified by email and can get the update for free.
  • Rocket Lawyer (you have to sign up for a TRIAL)
    • website terms and conditions - an indepth wizard. It is UK aware. When you have finished the wizard you can see the document and you are prompted to register to view you document at any time. You cannot download it at this point so you must register. This subscription service has many other document generators available not just for websites
    • and more
  • E-Terms - E-Terms are the UK's leading provider of custom-made Website Terms and Conditions. We've helped over 2,000+ businesses with their website legal documents, with prices starting at just £35.
    • Website Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Cookie Policy Template
    • and more
  • Privacy & Cookie Policy Generator - for Websites and Apps | iubenda - Privacy laws require privacy policies on websites and apps: Use our lawyer-crafted, self-updating and international privacy policy generator.
  • Internet Legal Armor - Easily generate unlimited "law firm quality" website legal documents and sell them to your clients! Add revenue to your business with our online compliance system. Website Legal Protection Made Easy!
  • Docular - A large online library of legal documents that you can build using their generator technology. Both a selection of free and paid options.

 

Document Templates (static)

Some websites offer excellent templates, free and paid, that require you to manually alter them giving you the same efect as a generator.

Free

Paid / Freemium

  • Disclaimer Template | Website Disclaimer - This site offers paid for documents and gives some information about the law. These guys seem to know what they are doing.
  • Legal documents - Docular - Docular helps you to create professional legal documents. Choose a template, customise online and download. It's that simple. All the documents currently available on Docular have been created by English-qualified lawyers. (Owned by SEQ Legal). There is a restriction to only be able to use 1 copy of each of the free templates, and this means 1 project.
  • Website Contracts | Templates by SEQ Legal - We supply downloadable template legal agreements and other legal documents relating to business, employment, media and technology. (Owned by SEQ Legal)
  • Terms of Service Generator (by freeprivacypolicy.com) - this is the upsell from the free privacy policy. If you go throught the Privacy Policy generator you will get this at a massive discount. The privacy Policy Generator seems to be the most comprehensive that I have seen so the Terms of Service generator should be the same quality.
  • Simply-Docs - Legal, Business & Property Documents & Templates - This site has many areas of documents with a UK slant
  • Off To See My Lawyer, Legal Advice For Entrepreneurs - for all small and medium sized businesses in the UK, we offer bespoke and 'oven ready' terms and conditions with a smile

 

 

Research

Various Terms and Conditions

I used these to research this article and looked at how these lot did things.

 

Reviews

While doing my research I had to assess a couple of sites and their products.

SEQ Legal

  • Their documents are set out more like a legal document
  • it has a lot of clauses. This prevents a lot of future issues.
  • This is a very tight contract and goes quite far to protect the owner fo the site.
  • Available to all and free as long as you leave the credit in. takes a lot more setting up
  • It does not mention the sales of goods.
  • it says that "Subject to Section 12.1, these terms and conditions[, together with [our privacy and cookies policy],] shall constitute the entire agreement between you and us in relation to your use of our website and shall supersede all previous agreements between you and us in relation to your use of our website" 18/18.1
  • SEQ say that if you have your own cookie policy, or you use their standalone cookie policy then you should remove the section from the privacy policy
  • Terms and Conditions - the document is well written and comes with many notes to help you configure it
  • SEQ Legal does not cover sale of goods, just the use of the website
  • These documents does has specific references to the UK Law

UKWADA

Their documents are only available if you are a member

  • policies are easier to read, not concerned if you are a company, mentions that goods bought are goverend by 'terms and conditions of supply'. not available to everyone, done by a UK law firm lawid~ it mentions the sale of goods.
  • Cookie document - this document needs you to fill in the cookies used (here come attacat)
  • UKWADA used Lawdit Solicitors http://www.lawdit.co.uk/ to create the documents
  • These documents does has specific references to the UK Law
  • It does not have including provision that give me use of content that is uploaded.
  • Has a linking clause
  • HAs many other clauses, it is quite a rounded document but does not feature a massive use of legal terms.

Docular (free)

  • Owned by SEQ Legal
  • Same documents (i think)
  • More a generator than static templates as you can configure them
  • Limitied to 1 copy of a free template, both an instance and license (not an issue with the ones from SEQ Legal)
  • Docular allows the downloading of all docs in html or word
  • Can store your generated documents on their system for editing
  • They have a time limit on how long you can edit a document for which is concerning. I have mentioned this to the site owner.

 

Prestashop

I looked into how prestashop handled acceptance of terms and here are my findings.

Read 8565 times Last modified on Wednesday, 13 December 2017 13:28
Published in General
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