Re: Web site legal disclaimers

["Poornima Padmanabhan" <nimapaddy -at- gmail -dot- com>]

Ken,
I recently worked on getting a legal web kit in place. I'm no legal expert
myself, but what I found worked for me was a three-part process:

1. A lit-study of about 50 websites to understand the type of legal
disclaimers used (across related industry domains such as software and
telecommunications), style/tonal considerations (how scary must you sound
and so on!), and extent of detail needed. This helped me list a series of
scenarios that absolutely NEED to be covered.

2. A study of the quality and regulatory standards in place (specific to
geographical region) for the industry domain. From this study, I built on
the scenario list significantly and removed items that were redundant or
just not valid any longer.

3. A quick chat with a legal consultant on what types of legal content we
needed on the website. Many companies now have their Terms of Use, Privacy
Statement, and User Agreements up on their website. The need for these
varies on how the website will be used. For information-only websites, the
Privacy Statement and Terms of Use would probably suffice, but on
transaction-based websites, it is important to have every manner of
agreement covered. It is also imo, necessary to have the content vetted by a
legal SME.

I think the key is to identify the legal artifacts required first, write all
the scenarios next, and only then start to write the actual content. It's a
lot of research to plan the content out from scratch, but the good part is,
actually writing out the content is a surprisingly small part of the
process.

Good luck, and feel free to check back if you have any questions.
~Poornima Padmanabhan


On 5/10/07, Ken Poshedly <poshedly -at- bellsouth -dot- net> wrote:
>
> Good morning all (at least here in metro Atlanta),
>
> I am looking for some boilerplate wording for a
> legal disclaimer to place on an organization's home page.
>
> As with many other organizations, this one
> includes links to a wide variety of outside web
> sites and web pages that include useful
> information related to the subject matter at
> hand. But those "other" web pages and web sites
> are obviously NOT under the control of the
> organization I need to help with the disclaimer.
>
> (A guy whose page is linked to my organization's
> home page has a running feud with another guy
> about the subject matter and temporarily placed a
> rather libelous statement on his own web page. In
> particular, he said "[So-and-so] is a f-----g
> idiot!" The statement was taken down after a day
> or so, but the "offended party" now threatens to
> sue all — including those who have hyperlinks to
> this guy's web page. My own attorney tells me his
> case against anybody other than the primary
> offender is weak at best, because every judge in
> the land knows there is no way to daily police
> every web page link to every other web page link.
> And yes, the "primary offender" has been put on
> notice that his link is to be dropped if this occurs again.)
>
> I already know what the disclaimer should state,
> but really would like to see samples of how other
> organizations have word their own versions.
>
> Some people NEVER grow up, eh?
>
> -- Ken in Atlanta
>
>
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