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Checked Your T.O.S. Lately? (Cyber-Cheating = Jail Time…)
By Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog |
Here’s an interesting article on the implications of the MySpace suicide ruling, regarding how much legal weight website Terms Of Service carries:
Examples:
1) Anyone under age 18 using Gmail or any of Google’s other products is breaking their T.O.S.
2) Match.com prohibits married people from using Match.com to cheat on their spouses
3) eHarmony.com forbids users from lying on their profile
In theory, after the MySpace suicide ruling, anyone doing the above can be classified as hackers and put in jail.
My point in mentioning this isn’t about their T.O.S. though, it’s a reminder to look at YOUR website terms of service…
If you’re like most Internet marketers, you put up a T.O.S. page based on what you saw others doing (if you did it at all), without really considering what it means, and what it may be binding YOU to.
I remember a high-profile company during the dot-com bust who couldn’t sell their customer database (which was their main asset) when they tried to sell their company, because it would have violated their own T.O.S. agreement to their users/customers. (Ouch)
What does your T.O.S. and Privacy Policy give you the right to do, and what could it possibly restrict you from doing in the future as your business grows and changes?
The above examples highlight theoretical risks for end-users, but as business owners there’s always the potential for frivolous lawsuits that a proper T.O.S. can help derail.
1) Does your T.O.S. say you promise to never sell, rent or trade your subscriber list under any circumstance? What happens when you decide to sell that domain with it’s subscriber list in a couple of years?
2) Do you ask people to enter their email address into a form before they can download or access something without explicitly stating in your T.O.S. that by entering their email address that they’re being added to your newsletter and will receive recommendations and promotions from time to time?
3) Do you offer any type of software download without having a specific disclaimer that absolves you of all responsibility if it causes a problem with their computer? If not and their hard drive happens to fails the day after they install your software, you may have a problem.
4) Do you provide any hosting or ecommerce-related scripts that could possibly fail or cause down-time without stating that you’re not responsible for any loss of income due to a problem?
5) Do you link to any outside resources/websites/products without mentioning in your T.O.S. that you bear no responsibility for the companies you’re linking to?
You’ve got to remember:
-Some people try to make a living filing frivolous lawsuits
-Others are confused and direct their anger at the wrong thing
I’ve had people contact me demanding a refund for a competitor’s product that I had no relationship with (never promoted, never linked to, etc), and even after I proved that they were asking the wrong company for the refund, still didn’t believe me.
You can’t control what lunatics stumble on to your website, you can only try to protect yourself from whatever bizarre things they may do.
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