Speaker 1: This is attorney Elizabeth Potts Weinstein, and today we're gonna talk about what are the legal requirements for a website. All websites have legal requirements. Typically people think about this if they're selling products or programs on their website, and it's definitely true that you're gonna need more legal things set up if you're selling stuff. But even if you just have a brochure type website or a blog where people can comment, maybe people can sign up for your newsletter, or you just have Google Analytics cookies, you have requirements for your website. The first legal requirement for your website is that somewhere on your website you need the legal name of your business. For most websites you can just put this in the footer and just have it say EPW Small Business Law PC, which is the legal name of my business. Now if you have a DBA or a trade name, that's fine if that goes up on the top banner of your website, but I highly recommend that you also have the legal name of your business on your website, even if it's just in the footer, maybe also in the about page. The reason you need this is because if people are doing business with you online, they need to know the legal entity they're doing business with, because otherwise they're gonna think it's just you, and they're gonna sue you personally instead of holding your business liable. So you definitely don't wanna have to deal with that when it's such a simple solution. The second legal requirement that you may have for your business is having some kinds of disclosures. What kind of disclosures you need really depends upon what you're doing in your business. If you're a professional, you probably have disclosures that apply to you saying that this website is not giving legal advice or healthcare advice or whatever it is. You may have disclosures based upon the types of your products that you sell. So if you sell products that people can apply to their body, you wanna disclose whether or not allergens or something that you've taken into consideration when developing your products. The third aspect of disclosures, if you are an affiliate, if you have sponsored posts, if you have testimonials or reviews, if you got anything for free, if other people have done testimonials for you, you need to have a disclosure that fully discloses the relationship that is happening there so people know what they're getting into when they're reading that post or watching that video. The third requirement is having a privacy policy. Every website needs a privacy policy. It's not that difficult to do, and you have to have that if you're collecting any information from people. Now, some of you are selling products, obviously you're collecting information. If people sign up for a newsletter, you're collecting something, but also even if you have cookies on your website, like for Google Analytics, you have to have a privacy policy. Now, what your privacy policy needs to say in it and whether or not people need to specifically consent to the privacy policy when they give you information depends upon where you are and where they are. If you have any clients or customers in the EU, you're gonna want to comply with the GDPR regulations. If you're here in the United States and everybody you ever have coming to your website is in the United States, then you may need to just worry about California's regulation. But for most of my clients, I have them comply with GDPR because all it takes is one person going on your website and filling out a form and GDPR applies to you. The fourth legal requirement for your business is a opt-in acknowledgement. Now, this depends upon where you are and where your people are, exactly what needs to go into this and it's related to your privacy policy. If someone signs up for your email list, for example, they sign up for your newsletter and they give you their name and email, they need to consent to how you're gonna use that information. Are you gonna sell that list to somebody? Are you gonna be sending them ads all the time? Are you gonna send them newsletters? How are you gonna use that? They have to consent to that use. Exactly how the consent works depends upon what laws apply to your business. The fifth legal requirement for any website is to have some kinds of terms and conditions. What that looks depends upon if you sell stuff from your website. So if you sell stuff from your website, it's gonna be much more extensive. A tip for you, if you are selling stuff from your website and you have some kind of terms and conditions, it is not enough to just put a link in your footer and then they're supposed to somehow find those terms and conditions and then they're bound to it. You have to have some evidence that they were at least able to read those terms and conditions when they purchased it from you. Best case scenario, you have a little box where they check it off when they opt in. I have some cases where we actually have people sign their agreement or put initials to their agreement to certain terms and conditions. It really depends upon the kinds of products or programs or services that you're selling on your website. The sixth legal requirement is a DMCA notice. DMCA is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. And what this is is a way for you to shift the burden of responsibility for the content on your website that you didn't put up there to the person who actually put it up there. So for example, let's say you have a blog that's on your website and people can write comments on the blog and someone cuts and pastes something in the blog comments that is copyright infringement for somebody else. A photo they use, a quote, a post from somewhere else, who knows what it could be. You don't want to be personally responsible for that content. So a DMCA, takedown notice information, is a place where people can go to find out how they should contact you if something that violates their copyright is on your website. All this is is a bullet point list of what they're supposed to do when someone finds something that's copyrighted on your website and it's a way to cover yourself. Typically, I put that in the terms and conditions of the privacy policy of the website. Again, this is Elizabeth Potts Weinstein. If you have any questions about the legal requirements for your website, feel free to go ahead and ask them below. If you found this video helpful, hit the thumbs up button and subscribe if you would like more legal tips and strategies for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Thanks a lot for watching. Bye-bye. Bye.