Poll: Where did you get your site/app's Terms of Service & Privacy Policy? • Hacker News Board

Re: Poll: Where did you get your site/app's Terms of Service & Privacy Policy?

#51

Post by cschmidt » Mon, Aug 22, 2011, 12:02 PM UTC

Facens wrote: post #40

riffraff wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is one I know of[1] though I'm not sure they got out of the beta. [1] http://www.iubenda.com/

Thank you for the mention, I'm the founder of iubenda. Any question is welcomed :)

Hmmm, I signed up for your service. At the end, it was saying there were 500+ people in line ahead of me. I could spam my social media network to get to the front of the line, for a service I had never used. That was a big turn off for me, so I went with other avenues.

Re: Poll: Where did you get your site/app's Terms of Service & Privacy Policy?

#52

Post by giffo » Mon, Aug 22, 2011, 12:11 PM UTC

therandomguy wrote: post #38

I wrote it myself: http://classfrog.blogspot.com/2011/07/terms-and-conditions.h...

Does the job nicely :)

Re: Poll: Where did you get your site/app's Terms of Service & Privacy Policy?

#53

Post by follownicholas » Mon, Aug 22, 2011, 1:00 PM UTC

jefft wrote: post #3

I paid a local law firm for a TOS once. It was not cheap, and after I received it, I had to manually edit out the remnants of an unfinished search/replace of another company's name. One more anecdote: When my service went live, I put a free t-shirt offer deep in the TOS. Only had 1 person ever try to redeem the offer.

Ha good sir, that is hilarious.

Re: Poll: Where did you get your site/app's Terms of Service & Privacy Policy?

#54

Post by rglover » Mon, Aug 22, 2011, 1:08 PM UTC

I've been wondering about this lately as our company is getting to a point where we'll need to get something in the works (we launch our beta in November). Sort of surprising to see that a lot of people copy/paste. If anything, seeing as how a lot of people on HN are software developers (primarily of SaaS apps), we should have a HN TOS that generally applies to web apps. Certain sections could be marked as needs to be edited so that company-specific language could be substituted. Seems appropriate considering the majority are going the copy/paste route. Thoughts?

Re: Poll: Where did you get your site/app's Terms of Service & Privacy Policy?

#55

Post by damoncali » Mon, Aug 22, 2011, 1:53 PM UTC

cfield wrote: post #48

It looks like a number of folks who use lawyers said they tried to cut costs by preparing the first draft and then having their lawyer look at it. Curiously, this can actually take a lawyer more time to review (and, hence, cost more money). I'd at least consider asking the lawyer for their base form that is the closest starting point for your business and working from that to prepare your first draft for their review…

This. I use a lawyer. He pulls a TOS off the shelf, edits a few paragraphs and it's done in no time. This is way cheaper (and quite reasonable) than having him review an existing document. It pays to go with a lawyer who knows about these things. This shouldn't be a hard problem.

Re: Poll: Where did you get your site/app's Terms of Service & Privacy Policy?

#56

Post by sunchild » Mon, Aug 22, 2011, 1:58 PM UTC

I've considered offering this service via my law firm. I'm curious what people would pay for generated ToS/Privacy Policies derived from a Q&A interface. My gut feeling is that the price should be under $250.

Re: Poll: Where did you get your site/app's Terms of Service & Privacy Policy?

#57

Post by maaku » Mon, Aug 22, 2011, 3:00 PM UTC

willyt wrote: post #41

pingswept wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have asked a lawyer this question. His response was: As for copyright over similar disclaimers, we, as attorneys have to use language that is acceptable as far as precedent and current law is concerned, thus, language will often be verbatim. Because of this there are no problems with copyright as far as the terms of use are concerned. The same principle is applied to real estate P&S contracts, as well as constructi…

In the UK I know it's not ok to e.g make a photocopy of a standard construction contract and, I'm guessing, any other type of contract where copyright is claimed by the author. In a contractual dispute, if it can be shown that you do not generally act in good faith, by infringing copyright in this case, it can be used as evidence to call into question your intention to carry out your obligations under the contract an…

I am also not a lawyer, but this is clearly not the case in the US. Lawyers are even encouraged by the courts to use identical language so that prior judgements can be absolutely relied upon.

Re: Poll: Where did you get your site/app's Terms of Service & Privacy Policy?

#58

Post by begriffs » Mon, Aug 22, 2011, 3:08 PM UTC

I would caution that entrepreneurs don't get overconfident about their Terms of Service. In many cases TOS are not really binding, especially if visitors never have to explicitly agree to them when using a site. Many sites blithely copy a TOS and then believe that their copyrights are safe but when it comes down to it, your legal success is a matter of your ability to pay to defend yourself.

Re: Poll: Where did you get your site/app's Terms of Service & Privacy Policy?

#59

Post by Zelphyr » Mon, Aug 22, 2011, 3:32 PM UTC

An attorney. There are some things you don't want to skimp on.

Re: Poll: Where did you get your site/app's Terms of Service & Privacy Policy?

#60

Post by username3 » Mon, Aug 22, 2011, 5:03 PM UTC

laxk wrote: post #31

As I can see "We copy/pasted & find/replaced from another site or app" is the most popular answer. So my question is: Is it legal to copy/paste TOS & PP from other sites if these documents aren't CC Sharelike license type?

TOS and PP from US government sites should be public domain.