How to Protect Your Blog with Legal Pages
Do you have legal pages on your blog? If not, then this post is for you!. Not having legal pages for your blog can get you into trouble with legal implications. In this article, we will discuss all the important legal pages that your blogs should have. Regardless of how good it is, a website may not have any notable recognition if it does not have a privacy policy, terms and conditions, and other legal pages. A website without these critical pages does not even encourage visitors to share their personal information.
If you want to protect your blog from lawsuits and comply with all legal requirements to avoid fines from authorities, lawsuits, or any formal complaints from your audience, then you must have legal pages.
Protect your blog with the 6 most important legal pages
1. Privacy Policy
The main purpose of a privacy policy page is to inform your visitors about the kind of information you will request from them and how you intend to use that information. It also includes children’s privacy, personal data, cookies, email marketing, third-party involvements, certain regional requirements, etc. Additionally, if your blog collects any personal data or collects cookies to improve user experience, it must have this policy.
You must mention the nature of the information you ask from your visitors and how you plan to use it to ultimately provide a good user experience. Ensure that your privacy policy page follows the norms as set by Information Technology Rules, 2011.
2. Affiliate Disclosure
The affiliate disclosure page is mandatory if you are promoting affiliate products on your blog. You must disclose your relations with the merchants, brands, products, services, etc. that you promote on your blog. You need to clearly state that if a purchase is made using the link shared in your blog, you receive a certain incentive as commission. Additionally, you must mention that this does not add any extra cost to the final price.
This also includes any sponsorship, ambassador or affiliate relations, financial rewards, and commissions that you will receive along with other compensations (if any). Such disclosure is vital from a legal and ethical aspect.
3. Disclaimer
A disclaimer enables you to deny or disclaim liability for the content you publish on your blog. It provides you security from lawsuits in the event that a reader feels your content is offensive or if your content seems problematic.
The structure of your disclaimer page depends on the kind of information you share in your blog. For instance, if your blog is all about fitness and physical health, then you can state a disclaimer that the information you share is not for medical treatment.
4. Terms and Conditions
Your terms and conditions page essentially includes all the general rules that apply to your visitors and other users in terms of permissions, intellectual property, copyright, exchange policies, termination rights, etc.
This is basically a legal contract between the visitors of your blog and you. This page protects you from any legal liabilities and will come in handy to resolve disputes in the future.
Your terms and conditions page should include information like
- Process for handling disputes
- Limitation of warranties and disclaimers
- Intellectual policy to stop blog infringement
- Rights to refuse services in case of an individual
- All relevant and applicable laws and arbitration clauses
5. Cookies Page
Another crucial page that you must have up on your blog is the cookies-page. Whenever you visit any blog or website for the first time, they send you a pop-up notification to accept their cookie policy. This essentially tells visitors and users that your website or blog uses cookies.
Cookies are a small piece of information about the website you visit. Your cookies-page should include information like:
- The kind of cookies your website uses
- How long will they exist in a user’s browser?
- The kind of data they track
- The information shared, parties involved, and it’s intended use
6. Refund Policy Page
If you are selling any products or services through your blog or on your website, or even if you have an online store, you need to have a refund policy page. Whether you are selling online courses, e-books, physical products, etc. you must have a refund policy page.
This page should essentially include
- The duration within which a customer can return the product
- The kind of refund applicable
- The shipping charges in case of physical products.
Wrapping it up!
Legal pages are required by law around the world. If you don’t add these legal pages to your blog or website, you are risking your business, making yourself vulnerable to lawsuits. We highly recommend that you create legal pages for your blogs immediately. The longer you put it off, the more vulnerable you are to legal implications.
Want to know more to protect your blog with legal pages? Which legal pages have you put up on your blog? Let us know in the comments below!
