Termini e condizioni
Clauses To Include in Your Terms and Conditions Agreement
Terms and Conditions agreements contain a broad range of guidelines for how you and your users can use your service or site.
Even short terms and conditions agreements should include several vital clauses to safeguard your business. Otherwise, your website’s terms and conditions agreement will be incomplete, exposing you to many legal risks.
Here’s what you should include in your terms and conditions agreements to prevent such misunderstandings and others:
Introduction
Your terms and conditions agreement should start with an introduction that lets users know they’re reading a terms and conditions agreement.
You should also mention that anyone using your service, platform, or site must follow the terms.
YouTube, for example, clearly establishes in its terms and conditions that:
- Users must agree to the terms of the agreement before using the service.
- Users must be at least 13 years old to use YouTube.
- Users under 18 must have their guardian or parents’ permission to use the service.
- Anyone who uses YouTube is automatically assumed to have agreed to its terms and conditions.
Governing and Applicable Laws
As touched upon above, you need to establish what national or state law governs the agreement between you and the users. Most companies choose the law of their state or country or the country where users access their site or app.
Most governing law clauses are short and straightforward. Spotify, for instance, consists of only four lines.
Disputes and Indemnification
You should establish that if someone were to distribute your website or its products/services, it would get handled by the proper courts or arbitration.
Outline that you have a right to and will use appropriate legal counsel
Contribution Clause
If your site or application allows users to create content, you should include a contribution clause telling users what rights they have to the content they create through your application or website.
Contribution clauses can be quite lengthy, particularly if the platform allows users to create many types of content and join different community activities, such as contests and media programs.
For example, YouTube’s contribution clause — which they call “Your Content and Conduct” — has eight sections for addressing the following:
- Uploading content
- Rights you grant to YouTube and other users of the service
- License to YouTube
- License to other users
- Duration of licenses you grant
- The right to monetize
- How to remove your content
- How YouTube can remove your content
Third Parties
This clause tells users that you are not responsible for any third-party services or sites to which your site links.
You should also tell users that they are solely responsible for reading the legal policies, rules, and terms and conditions of third-party sites and services.
