Archive for the ‘Disclosures’ Category

Disclaimer Website Forms are Within Your Reach

You’ve finally made the big plunge, and you got your first website up and running. Congratulations! It’s not an easy task. But did you remember when compiling your grand scheme to make it big on the web to include some very important pages? Do you have all the necessary disclaimer website forms?

Lawsuits Happen

I have a confession to make. I have actually been involved in a real class suit against a website! Don’t think it can’t happen to you.

I’m sure the service you are going to offer is on the up and up, but unfortunately all it takes is one or two complaints to the BBB and a few disgruntled customers for your whole business to be wiped off the web.

It is of the utmost importance to be transparent about your business practices from the start. You know what you are doing, but do your customers? Giving them full disclosure assures them that they are your number one priority. It just makes good business.

New laws put into effect just recently have given the FTC the authority to fine you thousands of dollars – just for not being clear to your customers what you are doing! This affects all affiliate marketers, and online business.

What can you do to protect yourself and the future of your business?

Be sure to add all the proper legal forms to your website.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Goodness, just getting the legal forms drafted up by a lawyer may cost more than what it cost to build your new site.

You need a solution that is going to give you full control over what is in your legal forms, and not cost an arm and a leg. And not some free forms you just found on the web – who knows how outdated those things are. Not to mention those free forms require you to link back to their site of origin. You are not only giving away a link to an unknown site, but you are going to have footprints on your forms that just will not look all too professional.

Legal Forms Generator Will Do It All

Using Attorney Mike Youngs Legal Forms Generator is going to give you the peace of mind that your forms cover everything you need them to.

The Legal Forms Generator is software you can install on your personal computer, and create legal forms for all your websites.

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Don’t let the FTC get you!

How Can I Get Legal Forms for My Website?

If you run a website on the internet, you really must include legal disclaimers. Legal Disclaimers can protect you from many kinds of legal problems that greedy or disgruntled users of the site could cause. Furthermore if you are running a US based website, or a website that deals with US businesses and customers you need to follow guidelines laid down by various federal agencies.

The important question of course though is, “Where can I get legal forms for my website?”. You may be tempted to simply copy a legal form from another website, but this could be a terrible idea. Legal disclosures on websites are often produced by lawyers and are used under license, and thus protected by copyright law. If you are found to have infringed a lawyers copyright it could end up costing you a lot of money! So if we ignore this option, there are three other common choices. You could hire an attorney of your own to produce your legal forms, you could use a legal form generator, or you could use one of thousands of pre-prepared free online legal forms. You should weigh each option up against the other and decide which is best for your particular website.

(1) You could hire an attorney specializing in internet law and have him draft up some legal forms for your website. This is of course a very expensive endeavor and only recommended if you are running a “serious” website making “serious” money. For 99% of webmasters using a legal form generator or a using free online legal forms will be a more sensible option. You can get perfectly good legal disclosures at a fraction of the cost of hiring a lawyer.

(2) You could use free legal forms which you can find online. There are a myriad of websites which offer free legal documents which may be suitable for your site. This is certainly a cost effective method of acquiring valid legal disclosures for your website, but please make sure that the legal forms you use are correct for YOUR site.

(3) You could use a legal form generator. If you do not know what this is exactly, it is a computer program into which you input the details of your website and business. The program will then automatically generates a series of legal forms for your website. This can be a good solution if you are a webmaster and have several or a lot of sites you wish to produce legal forms for. If you are using a reputable form generator you can be sure that the templates will have been produced by a lawyer and will be suitable for a wide range of websites.

As we have seen it is incredibly important for you to provide legal disclosures on your website and you need to make sure that the forms you do use are appropriate for your site. It is recommended that you first decide how many different websites you are going to need legal forms for, and then select the best option for your situation from the three above. Remember, do not try and ‘borrow’ your online legal forms from someone else’s website – it could get you in trouble!

What are the new FTC requirements for Websites / Blogs?

FTC Requirements regarding Endorsements and Testimonials for Websites and Blogs

Effective December 1st 2009 the Federal Trade Commission has updated its guidelines with regards to endorsements and testimonials which appear on websites, blogs and other e-commerce sites. The guidelines were created after a three year consultation, review and publication period beginning in January 2007 and concluding in October of 2009. So what do these new guidelines mean for you and your website or blog?

The report rolled in at a of length 81 pages but there are two key things that internet marketers need to be aware of and act upon immediately if their websites are affected by the change in guidelines.

First of all you must disclose your relationship to any product on your web page from which you have received, or could receive gain in any form. If you were paid to write a review of a product, you have to disclose it. If you make a commission, or might make a commission, on a product reviewed, promoted or even mentioned on your website, you have to disclose it. If you received a stuffed toy in the mail from a company you mention on your website you should disclose it. Disclose any way in which you have gained, may gain or will gain a benefit from an outside company from your website or blog. This should include not just physical and monetary compensation, but also any discounts you may be liable to receive.

The second critical issue in the FTC’s report is with regards to testimonials and endorsements. In simple terms, if a testimonial is not a TYPICAL result, you must disclose what a TYPICAL result is. For example you may have a testimonial from Sally, 42, from Wisconsin who lost 50lb by following the Super-Eazy-Super-Diet which you are promoting. If this testimonial is true but MOST people who follow the diet do not lose 50lbs, then you must clearly state what the likely results are.

In the past you could get away with, “Results not typical” but this is no longer the case. You now need to write exactly what results the ‘average consumer’ can expect. In this case you might have to say, “The average dieter following this program will lose 2lbs”, or whatever the correct average is. You must state what a typical consumer can expect from the product, not rely on testimonials from atypical consumers. Yes it is hard to know what a typical consumer can expect, but it seems that the FTC does not care about that. They are saying that testimonials have to be matched with a report of typical results and it is up to anyone running a blog or website to make sure they do their best to follow these rules, no matter the difficulties.

A further point to bear in mind if you are the publisher of a product, and not just an affiliate, is that you can be held liable for misrepresentations made by your affiliates. You are expected to monitor people who are paid to promote your product and, in the words of the FTC, “take steps necessary to halt the continued publication of deceptive representations when they are discovered.” Time will tell how stringent the FTC will be in holding publishers accountable for their affiliates. It will be interesting to see how major players such as Clickbank, which is effectively a retailer, will be with affiliates who have web pages which contravene the FTC guidelines.

If you are promoting products as an affiliate it is likely that the publishers of products (the sensible ones at least), will explain how they want you to disclose your relationship. As they are ‘on the hook’ as much as you as a promoter of products it is in their best interest to make sure that their affiliates are following the new FTC guidelines. In order to be safe though, you should make your relationship to the products you promote clear as soon as possible on your blog or website. So far most web pages are creating a ‘disclosure’ page on their site which explains their relationship to publishers and any compensation they have received or are liable to receive. As the FTC hasn’t explicitly stated how disclosures should be made on web pages, this appears to be the current best solution.

The new FTC rules are stringent, and many would say over the top. At the moment we have to rely on the guidelines the FTC have published, but over time we will also be able to see just how they go about enforcing the rules and adjust accordingly. Further announcements may be made, or case law established as the FTC begins to enforce these rules after December 1st. For the time being website and blog owners are urged to protect themselves by disclosing all their affiliate relationships, and either avoid using testimonials or publish “average expected results” alongside any testimonials that are used.