Ask HN: How do you create your TOS and Privacy Policies?

16 points by samsheen 12 years ago | 5 comments

I want to know whether I should create a Terms of Service and Privacy Policy page for my website. Searching on google brings out quite a few free online TOS and policy creators. However, I do not have the know-how to figure out how good they are.

How important is it to have those pages? Do I need them even if I am just validating an idea? or at an MVP launch?

Is picking up a free template online a good idea? Do I need to see a Lawyer?

Do you have a startup(s) whose TOS and Privacy Policy you refer to?

Any other things I need to keep in mind?

Thank you for your time and help. I love this community.

relaunched 12 years ago |

As to whether or not you should -- the answer is yes.

It's good to let people know, upfront, what you are doing and how using the website will affect them. Especially, what rights you are reserving / requiring and obliging them to agree to (b/c most ToS's derive consent to the agreement implicitly just by using the product).

A free template is better than nothing. However, find popular sites (and sites similar to what your site does) and let those be your guide.

Do you need to see a lawyer?...always, if possible. It's always money well spent and a lot cheaper when you get a lawyer involved upfront.

Check out any Google service, Facebook, Twitter, etc. That's a great starting point, but more detailed then you might need. I would need to know a little more about your project, if you are looking for something more specific.

samsheen 12 years ago | |

I am launching a document translation service. Don't have a website up yet, so nothing that I can point you to. Sorry.

The user will upload their document, make payment and download translated document. I figured I needed a privacy policy since some of the data might be sensitive.

Thanks. Will check out what others in my niche have done and take it from there.

ScottWhigham 12 years ago |

I want to know whether I should create a Terms of Service and Privacy Policy page for my website.

Yes, that shouldn't be up for discussion IMO. Yes, you need one of each. Both help tell people what kind of company you are (at a meta level) and both are signals to search engines that you are "real".

As for how, find some companies you like and align with and use those as rough guides. You'll surely find ways to differentiate your product/service/needs so you'll have no problems once you do that.

flynfish 12 years ago |

Docracy is a really cool service (https://www.docracy.com). It allows you to fork documents and you can find plenty of terms of service examples on their site. You can also fork the docracy terms and change them to your needs since their TOS is open source.

You can also host your TOS/Privacy policy on docracy and link to it from your website so users can see changes that you have made.

kvnn 12 years ago |

Automattic open sources their privacy policies and tos across their multiple sites. See http://automattic.com/privacy/ as an example.