These various terms may confuse some people and make them think they're completely different agreements. In fact - there is no difference. Any of these three terms sometimes even referred to as user agreement can be used as the name of the agreement to indicate the same document.
Many major websites use these phrases interchangeably. It is the information contained within the page that is important. While they are not legally required, terms and conditions set the stage for any successful business relationship, by making it clear and putting these guidelines in writing, business owners can avoid misunderstandings with their customers. It also allows you to decide what you consider acceptable and which type of conduct could lead you to terminate a relationship with a user.
For example, if you have rules as to what type of user-generated content can be shared on your website and someone posts something that goes against these, then you would have a leg to stand out should you decide to take that content down. It can also help you limit your liability in regards to some situations, which could reduce the likelihood of facing lawsuits or reduce the damages that you would have to pay should it be demonstrated that your user was aware and had agreed to your terms.
In other words, when drafted properly, it allows you to maintain ownership and control over your product website or application and can help in maintaining a positive and pleasant relationship with your users as they will be aware of what constitutes acceptable behavior.
Not only that, it can address a lot of the questions that users may have and for which they would have reached out to you for an answer, effectively saving you time and resources. It is common to see terms and conditions which include a list of prohibitions or general guidelines to be followed by users. These can be broad, such as stating that your services are not to be used for illegal or unlawful purposes or that users must not try to breach or test the vulnerability of your network or circumvent security measures.
If your platform is collaborative, meaning users are invited to share such as on a social media network, you could have a separate page with community guidelines, which you could link to in that clause. You can reserve the right to terminate the contract or disable user accounts should there be a violation of any of your terms, guidelines, and conditions by including a termination clause - this is very common in the case of websites and SaaS applications.
Having a copyright notice that confirms and warns your users that the content on your website is yours and is not to be reproduced or re-used without your express permission and that re-affirms that you hold trademarks and ownership over certain elements of the website itself and over the products that you sell should be a no-brainer.
If you sell products online, you may wish to state that while you do your best to ensure that descriptions are accurate and colors adequately represented, you cannot be held responsible should there be discrepancies in size, shape, or colors with the products received by the customer as their computers may simply have been showing them differently. The same goes for product availability.
Similarly, you should recognize that errors do happen and you could, for example, give yourself the right to correct wrong information, such as prices, and to cancel or refuse to process an order that was made based on that information. Your business may evolve along the way, therefore you may wish to include a sentence stating that you may add or remove features, products, or services from time to time without any prior notice. Limitation of liability disclaimers is one of the main reasons why business owners take the time to include terms and conditions on their websites.
When reasonable and drafted adequately, such clauses can help protect your business against claims and lawsuits and limit the amount of money that you would have to pay in damages.
While you cannot exclude your liability for just anything and everything, you could, for example, state that you will not be held liable should your users not be able to use your website or your product - this is important, especially if you offer a service or platform on which businesses rely on in order to operate.
It's also a good idea to have a separate disclaimer available that explains this and other related clauses in-depth. In this clause, you could reserve the right to monitor the user-generated content shared on your website and remove anything that goes against your guidelines. You could also make it clear that you reserve the right to suspend or delete the accounts of repeat infringers. This will help you make your website a safe space where people can feel comfortable sharing their opinions, which is especially important if you operate a news site, blog, or forum.
From a business point of view, you could reserve the right to use the submitted content for marketing purposes which a lot of big box stores and eCommerce retailers do in order to promote products that get rave reviews. If you are selling products or services online, you may wish to specify the methods of payment that you accept, including your use of third-party payment providers if any PayPal, Stripe, etc. Though most Terms of Service are posted online as one long document--often in legalese--you can also craft more user-friendly terms and link to the legal speak.
Many communities will make agreeing to the Terms of Service part of the registration process. Other sites simply link to the terms, most often as a pervasive link at the bottom of every page of their site.
The best method would be some kind of digital signature that a new member would have to sign before gaining access. With the advent of e-signature services, such as DocuSign and EchoSign, getting signatures on agreements entirely on the Web is fast becoming not only possible but also secure and legally binding. The least legally-binding method of sharing the Terms document is simply by having a link on your site to it.
As long as the link is prominent, there is a certain degree of implied consent when someone joins and participates in someone else's community. If you aren't sure where to start to get a template for your Terms of Service, try the Creative Commons site or do a search for Terms of Service and see who uses the Creative Commons Share Alike license--which means you can repurpose the content for your own use.
There are a lot of parts to a Terms of Service but you will want to include 1. A clear definition of your company and the property or properties--meaning the site or sites you are hosting and managing. Links to your policies as separate documents, such as a privacy policy, a security policy, and--if you are selling things--a return policy. A list of the responsibilities of community members when it comes to commenting on your blog posts or communicating with other commenters, etc.
An outline of the illegal behavior you will not condone, such as guidelines that state members cannot violate copyright or trademark laws or risk being banned from the community. Specifications as to what you consider inappropriate behavior, such as spamming or posting pornographic materials or links to such.
A statement about fees, if there are any, and what the services or products are in return for such fees. It contains a listing of project requirements, such as preliminary reports, design reports, and drawing review requirements. Once the service provider has been chosen, the builder contractor is chosen via an Invitation to Tender, which includes the full design drawings and specifications. Although a competent vendor should be able to decompose the deliverables into constituent tasks, a predetermined task list ensures that less competent vendors do not miss something and thereby underbid the more competent vendors.
Both of these items are solid parts of a Terms of Reference. Schedules are to a project manager like hammers are to a carpenter. If you have a strong scope of work but no timeline to perform it under, you might get excellent work in an unacceptable time line. Hence, Terms of Reference should have a schedule that details the major milestones.
Whether a full gantt chart with completion dates for each and every task, or a listing of a few project milestones, it gives the vendor a firm schedule to perform the work under. Typically, a simple table itemizing the major project milestones establishes the schedule baseline without micromanaging an external supplier.
Often the work must be coordinated with third parties. These could include utility companies, environmental monitoring agencies, database management firms, or other third party stakeholders that overlap with the project. It is rare these days that a project does not have some form of overlap with third party stakeholders. Adjacent landowners, end users, or even the general public must be actively managed to ensure they do not trip up the project. It is easy to identify the major stakeholders that have large power over, or interest in, the project.
The Terms of Reference should clearly list the third parties that have an interest in the project, and define what their interest is as much as possible.
Government regulatory agencies are not in the business of stopping projects. Rather, they seek to balance the needs of a stakeholder group, for example an environmental activist group, with the needs of the project. Of course, they have the power to rule completely in one direction. But typically they allow projects to proceed under a set of requirements which was determined from consultations with the other side.
0コメント