Collection of documents that startups commonly need: Privacy Policy, NDA, etc...

Collection of documents that startups commonly need: Privacy Policy, NDA, etc...(pearwords.com)

220 points by x03 15 years ago | 25 comments

gtani 15 years ago |

http://www.docstoc.com/documents/legal/

http://www.orrick.com/practices/corporate/emergingCompanies/...

http://www.businessinsider.com/legal-documents-for-your-star...

duck 15 years ago |

I like the idea, but I just don't see startups needing or using an email disclaimer. Plus they are pretty much worthless legal wise - http://www.economist.com/node/18529895.

yummyfajitas 15 years ago | |

This isn't true. Email disclaimers can't unilaterally create a contract between the sender and receiver. This doesn't mean they are legally worthless.

Two legally useful email disclaimers: "this is not legal advice" and "this is not an offer to buy or sell securities".

These are both legally binding, because they merely remove potential ambiguity from an email and explicitly state the absence of a contract. Without the disclaimer, the text of an email might otherwise be interpreted to mean that a contract was present.

chc 15 years ago | | |

Really? If the email actually looks like an offer to buy or sell securities, I would imagine the disclaimer could be viewed as either mindless boilerplate with no genuine intent behind it or subterfuge.

Like, I wouldn't imagine you could send an email along the lines of, "Hey, I'm looking to buy some securities. You in, bro? DISCLAIMER: This is not an offer to buy or sell securities."

woodall 15 years ago | |

The comments for that article are worth a read:

     Zouf wrote:

     While you are mostly correct, there is one good legal use of an email footer:
     to declare the data above it as confidential, and therefore comply with
     confidentiality agreements that protect only data that has been explicitly
     declared as confidential.

I found this one particularly funny:

     stewsnooze wrote:

     Practice what you preach.......

     This e-mail may contain confidential material. If you are not an intended
     recipient, please notify the sender and delete all copies. It may also contain
     personal views which are not the views of The Economist Group. We may
     monitor e-mail to and from our network...

http://www.economist.com/comment/886653#comment-886653

I wouldn't start leaving them out just yet.

cschmidt 15 years ago | | |

Well, they do mention in the article that they do it themselves....

> Many firms—The Economist included—automatically append these sorts of disclaimers to every message sent from their e-mail servers, no matter how brief and trivial the message itself might be.

x03 15 years ago | |

Thanks...yeah, we appreciate that an email disclaimer isn't necessarily the most effective means legally, but they're still in such wide-spread use that they do carry a certain weight to them that a lot of people find re-assuring to have, hence their inclusion.

We hope a lot more people will find the privacy policy, NDA and the coming terms of use more helpful...and we hope to have some other documents up soon, too...so, don't forget to bookmark it! :)

sunchild 15 years ago | | |

Sorry, but this is why those silly disclaimers continue to propagate. They are nothing but noise in most cases. An exception might be tax advice disclosures.

jamiecurle 15 years ago |

The privacy policy states

  PearWords does not...
    Place "cookies" (small text files) on your system for any reason.

I would beg to differ, it may be Google Analytics dropping the cookies on pearwords' behalf, but they're still there. (http://d.pr/D3oy)

scott_s 15 years ago | |

Go ahead and use full URLs. HN will shorten its display if it's too long, and we prefer to see where we're going.

ojilles 15 years ago | | |

I guess this is a bit of special case as the service this person is using only has these short URLs :-)

woodall 15 years ago |

I know you are not offering legal advice, which IMO is good, but has the language in any of these documents been looked over by a profession/practicing lawyer? Other than that, these are great; I'll be using the Privacy Policy and NDA.

x03 15 years ago | |

We feel all the documents on PearWords are solid, concise and fair to both parties.

That said, we've not had these certified by a practicing lawyer simply because even if we do most people would still rather have a lawyer they know and trust do it for them before signing a contract, especially considering the variety of territories that PearWord's audience is located. It should be a fair bit cheaper to have a lawyer look over and change where appropriate any details than have them write an original document for you.

PearWords strongly advise that any person have a lawyer vet and modify where necessary any legal documents before signing them, no matter the situation.

Thanks for your comment! :)

kovar 15 years ago | | |

So what is the downside to you vetting these documents via a lawyer first? Ensuring that the documents are even a little bit better will save your users collectively a lot of legal fees.

blhack 15 years ago |

This is excellent, thank you to whoever is putting it together.

arnorhs 15 years ago | |

I second that.

On a side note - It's very strange that there's no email address, no name of the person/persons behind this, no twitter account etc. Just the contact form.

I mean, I'd like to follow whoever did this on twitter.

x03 15 years ago | | |

Thanks! :)

I'm working on getting us a "Team" page to showcase all our talent with pictures, Twitter links, etc...

Zouf wrote: While you are mostly correct, there is one good legal use of an email footer: to declare the data above it as confidential, and therefore comply with confidentiality agreements that protect only data that has been explicitly declared as confidential.

stewsnooze wrote: Practice what you preach....... This e-mail may contain confidential material. If you are not an intended recipient, please notify the sender and delete all copies. It may also contain personal views which are not the views of The Economist Group. We may monitor e-mail to and from our network...