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I'm starting an online business and it has come time for me to think about writing the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. I've looked through a whole bunch of other similar companies TOSes and Privacy Policy. But I'm not completely sure I understand them all, and I don't want to just cut and paste from theirs into mind with out understanding what I'm making my users agree to.

So, my question is, how do you write a Terms of Service and/or Privacy Policy? What are the things you need to think about before writing it? What things should be definitely covered in each and what things should maybe or probably be covered depending on the actual service?

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Well, first off, cutting and pasting may be copyright infringement.

Wikipedia's content is creative commons based, so you can use and adapt it in accordance with that license agreement.

If you don't understand something, the best thing to do is consult competent professional advice (like an attorney). Next best thing is to ask questions.

If you've read other TOS and Privacy Policy documents, they may be adequate for the sites, or they may not. Just because it's posted doesn't mean that it will hold water should something bad happen. Doing your homework and then seeking professional advice to make sure the documents work for you is the safest way to go.

Having said all of that, though, if you use Google AdSense on your site, you'll need to pay heed to what Google says you'll need in your Privacy Policy.

For the rest, you can Google "free website privacy policy" or "free website terms of service" to get boilerplate. These are better than nothing. If you sell a product, you need a TOS. If you collect user information, or use services that do, you'll need a privacy policy that addresses each way you use it.

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The issue is, I'm bootstrapping. I don't have the funds to really consult an attorney. The business is going to based in ads. Not planning on using google ads, gonna use my own. So I need something that will hold water at least until I can raise the funds to consult an attorney and get a good one. The other issue is that the site is for users to post input - input that has the potential to be copyrighted (although the law on copyrighting the stuff my users will be posting is unclear). I'm sorta surprised that there isn't some sort of discussion of this online somewhere... – Daniel Bingham Jan 23 at 20:39

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