Blog Details

Author - Associate Shereen Abdin

A website contract is crucial for any business to keep the business people connected with the users. There are various types of agreements such as Website terms & conditions and privacy policies.

Each website's T&C's and privacy policies are different and, need not be the same. The right to decide the policies rests with the website owner. The policies must be adaptable, easy to understand and, acceptable by law.

Terms and conditions for a website act as a basis for a website, before getting into a final agreement with the user. They help in imparting the knowledge of the rules and regulations and business risks involved. Sometimes, the user may be required to sign a disclosure form.

There are two approaches to make users agree to the terms and conditions. These are Browse wrap and Clickwrap, and the second is preferred over the first. This is due to the confirmation by the user that he has agreed to the specified terms and conditions. The latter does not provide any confirmation from the user, whether they read the T&C‘s or not.

The different types of T&C's cover two general documents and four specific documents.

• Website Terms and Conditions (standard-form)
• Website Terms and Conditions (long-form)
• Blog Terms and Conditions.
• Social Network Terms and Condition
• Directory Website Terms and Conditions
• Subscription Website Terms and Conditions

Linking policy

For instance, if you have an e-commerce store and, you have written your policies for returns and refunds of goods. Then the user should be easily able to find the information, without the hassle of running through pages in the Terms and Conditions policy. This can be made simpler by adding a tittle under Terms and conditions as Returns and Refunds.

Every business operates uniquely. So, the policies can be drafted accordingly, but need to ensure there is more transparency in the displayed details of the content.

For instance, Linked offers a provision to read the Terms & Conditions and, the privacy policies by the checkbox stating, "Join now, you agree to Linked in's user agreement and privacy policy". This is done to inform the users in advance before creating an official account on their site.

Likewise, PayPal also provides the policies with separate links to all legal agreements on the app page, to make it easily available.

A privacy policy is a predefined legal document that, defines the way the website owner will collect and use the personal information of users. This is an important policy concerning the usability of the website, as it provides relevant information to users in advance. The primary aim of having a privacy policy is to maintain the confidentiality of customer information.

The privacy policy includes the following documents:

• Privacy Policy
• Cookies Policy
• Privacy and Cookies Policy
• Privacy and Cookies Policy (pre-GDPR)

The primary reasons for creating a privacy policy are listed below:

• To ensure website owners adhere to data protection and data privacy laws.
• To ensure users that the collected information is being used lawfully.
• Imparts the legal rights of the users concerning their data.

The types of personal data gathered, and the way it is used depends mostly on the type of the website and the operation of the business, the website owns. For instance, an online store will collect crucial information like user name and address details, payment details and order details. The address given is used for delivering the product and, the payment details are used to process the payment.

Information Collected

Some e-commerce websites apply the method of collecting user's data via a form. The personal data would include name, residing address of the user, email id, mobile number, job designation, log in details for the website, billing, shipping address and bank account information.

Conclusion

Ensure all the policies in the agreement are checked before adding them to the website and, the users have legally affirmed. To conclude, have a thoroughly defined policy for your website to avoid any disputes and, experience a customer-friendly relationship on a long run with reciprocal benefits.