Affiliate Marketing Emails: How to Disclose Your Affiliate Status

Did you know that because of the new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines going into effect, affiliate marketers will need to disclose to recipients that affiliate links are in emails sent marketing a product or service for an affiliate program? That’s in addition to having the right website legal forms on your sites.
Internet attorney Mike [...]

FTC Guidelines: How Will They Affect Your Website Legal Forms?

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) new guidelines are causing a stir in the Internet marketing community because most website owners and affiliate marketers simply don’t know how to interpret the guides.
Will it change blogging and affiliate marketing as we know it?
What about about your website’s legal forms, testimonials, endorsements, earnings claims, and compensation?
What’s new?
How [...]

Personally Identifiable Information: What Your Website Needs

If you’re collecting personally identifiable information from visitors to your website (such as names, e-mails, and other personal data), you’re going to want to include a clear privacy policy that describes exactly what you’re doing.
The main purpose of a website privacy policy is to reassure visitors that you’re not going to abuse information they provide [...]

Legal Disclaimer: Why You Should Have One On Your Website

When you sell products or services on your website that customers can use to make money, you’ll want to protect yourself with a particular type of legal disclaimer called an earnings disclaimer.
An earnings disclaimer is important for your online business because some of your customers will have unrealistic expectations about how much money they can [...]

Terms of Use: Is It Different Than A Terms of Service

Many website owners are confused by the difference between a website’s Terms of Use, Terms of Service, and Terms and Conditions of Use. Although there are some technical legal distinctions between the terms “use” and “service,” as a practical matter all three types of documents are pretty much the same thing. The name of the [...]

Spam Policy: Why Your Website Should Have One

Because unsolicited commercial e-mail (spam) is such a nuisance these days, the U.S. federal government has strict penalties for spamming under the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (CAN-SPAM Act). You could face prison time and big fines. Your anti-spam policy should tell the public that you don’t spam and [...]

External Links: Why You Need to Protect Your Website Because of Them

Your website needs an External Links Policy because it can reduce your legal liability exposure.
Why?
Although you can control your own website’s content, there’s very little that you can do about the content on other websites that you link to. For example, what you link to as a valid resource today might become a site that [...]

Twitter Terms of Service: Changing Your Website’s Terms Matter

What you put in your Terms of Service (a.k.a. Terms of Use or Terms and Conditions of Use) matters because it defines the relationship between you and your website visitors. In some instances, these terms create enforceable contract rights in your favor as the website owner.
This is particularly important when it comes to advertising and [...]

Affiliate Agreement: When Should You Use One

When you run an affiliate program that pays others for generating sales for products or services offered on your website, you’ll want to have an affiliate agreement in place that protects your legal interests in case you have a dispute with an affiliate over payment or the way the affiliate is promoting your products and [...]

DMCA Notice: An Important Part of Your Website

DMCA notices are based on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (PDF summary).
The DMCA is a complicated U.S. federal law that makes you responsible for handling copyright infringement complaints in a certain way. This includes claims that someone makes about photos, videos, or text on your site where the claimant contends he owns the [...]

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