Hello all, I am about to launch a paid directory site which will also have social networking features such as those on facebook (adding friends, messages, wall posts etc). I am wondering what kind of legal notices I should have on such a site and where I can find such notices. I know that I should have a privacy policy and a terms and conditions page for sure, but what I don't know is whether one of those free sample documents would work (at least for this initial phase when I don't know if the site will be a success or not and I cannot afford to actually hire a lawyer to customize such documents for the site). Visitors will be able to create profiles and interact with other visitors, and they will of course be able to pay and get their business listed (would i need a separate TOS for accepting such payments?) . If you need any more information from me, please ask and I will reply promptly. Thanks in advance!
I could type up some for you, but what is it your trying to accomplish and how will you be taking payments, if it's like from paypal I wouldn't worry too much about it.
At this point, it looks like it's going to be paypal, but that will certainly change as soon as I figure it out... I have just been so deep into the development phase of the site that I haven't really considered or researched payment methods. Paypal subscription sounds easy enough, but I am sure that many potential customers will be "turned off" by the idea of HAVING to sign up for a paypal account, so I will definitely find alternative methods as well - possibly before the launch. Does it really make that much of a difference in terms of the TOS? In regards to what I am trying to accomplish... that's complicated I guess. Honestly, I still don't know 100%. All I know is that I have been developing sites for a few years now, and this is my biggest one so far... by far. I am a great marketeer so it will definitely get a lot of traffic, and with a lot of visitors many problems can come up. The visitors are divided into two groups: 1) Customers - business owners who pay for a listing 2) General members - any visitors who sign up as members In the worst case scenario, I can assume that both of those groups can cause problems. I am thinking in terms of customers demanding stuff and then threatening if the site doesn't deliver... I am thinking in terms of members saying that their child signed up and a creep send him/her a msg... I am thinking of anything... I honestly don't know which of the things that I am thinking of are valid concerns, but after hearing about the "person sues starbucks because their coffee was too hot AND WINS!" story, I promised myself that I would pay close attention to the terms and conditions of every service I provide. I am sure you understand. Do you think you could help?
What qualifies you to write his legal documents? You have valid concerns, but do not just use anything as your legal documents. If you do, they are likely to do you no good and could easily do you harm. There are some lawyers on here who do this work. I am a lawyer, but am not looking for work, but I am trying to help you avoid mistakes. Don't jump to let just anyone do this or it serves no purpose. Perhaps Ryan Lee is qualified to offer you advice, but since he didn't mention any qualification, I would doubt it.
Because I wrote my own legal documents for several of my companies and has prevented one lawsuit when it hit the court system, I'm not a lawyer but it don't take a genius to prevent someone from doing something you don't want, but that does not mean it will also protect you a 100% due to the fact your terms of service will be overwritten by state and federal laws so you can't change the laws, but the main thing is before you even go anywhere and do anything you need to figure out what you want to prevent, just saying you don't want to get sued isn't something you can just stop from any tos. You can private message me your email address and I'll see if I can help you or not, and yeah on the paypal subscription service people don't like subscribing trust me I know they like to pay monthly on there own so don't force them into something as they most likely will not want to do it, You can use google merchant to accept credit cards and have it directly depoit into your bank account and the fees are very low even lower then paypal only like 3-4%.
I think you should have more legal documents on your website. On my websites I provide also DMCA Notice, Compensation Disclosure, CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 Compliance Notice, and External Links policy.