I want to promote my site by having a contest on it. I want to make it open to anyone in the world who wants to enter. What are the rules around holding personal contests with prizes under $50? Do I need to have all the disclaimers and legal crap that you see on otehr sites? I'm looking to do this on a regualr basis as often as once a month so I want to make sure that I can do it.
It depends on your country, the contestants' country and, in the US, the contestants' state. The rules in California, for example, depends on whether it's a game of "skill" ("contest") or "chance" (sweepstakes or if entrants have "paid value" to enter, a lottery ). Lotteries are illegal (other than the one run by the state). You can read the rules here: http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/legal_guides/u-3.shtml It doesn't matter what the value of the prize is, if you want to run your promotion legally you have to follow the rules, including having all the required disclaimers. Every other state has slightly different regulations (which is why some contests in the US say they aren't valid in certain states). Outside the US, each country has its own laws, so it can be a complicated mess trying to create a contest that is legal everywhere.
I'm in Canada and I want to have weekly draws for things like DVD movies and Video Games to try and get traffic to my site. The user will need to enter their email and if it gets picked then I will contact them by email to get the shipping information. So I was going to target Canada and US traffic but I was hoping to open it up to more places if it wasn't too much work.
Would be best to ask a lawyer (or lawyers) if you can without too much hassle/financial cost if they charge you for their time. Makes me think of all the lotteries etc. that are run in schools that don't come with disclaimers or any legality whatsoever, especially student ones used as fund raising for the year that will be graduating where they take 50% and the other 50% is awarded to the winner.
Yup. Gotta cover your rear-end on everything. "Contests" are used as a business model on a lot of music sites these days. You may want to go to Broadjam.com and read their terms on that and get an idea of how they cover themselves. They pay high priced lawyers to write this stuff, but you can get a good feel for it that way. Plus, all the "Privacy Statements" and standard disclaimer stuff you should have just owning a website in the first place, contests are a specialized area.
Most of the time it is perfectly legal as long you DONOT charge and entry fee. then it would become a lottery.