Comments on: Lesson: Don’t Bury Important Stuff in Your TOS

By: anantj

anantj — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 07:32:00 +0000

A legal all-you-can-eat-buffet for sharks ;)

Nope it is not. Sharks offer professional courtesy to lawyers ;)

By: roosevelt

roosevelt — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 01:39:29 +0000

Well it doesn’t work like that in business, or at least I don’t let it bother me.

From my experience, no matter how clear you are about things, there will be always one bad apple out there, giving you negative reps.

If you spend too much thinking about them and forget to improve your service/product for the people, especially those who completely understands and respects your TOS, then you might have a hard time lasting in business or might not profit as much as your potentials could be.

Purchasing a product or service is a binding contract, and you need to treat it like one. So, if it’s easy to read or not, you need to read it or get someone to read it for you if it’s too difficult for you to grasp.

A friend of mine who studied business, actually told me that, one of the things they learned while reading is, it’s actually fine and legal to write a TOS any way you want. Because what may seem buried to you, is not buried to someone else.

By: Josh Catone

Josh Catone — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:12:16 +0000

@roosevelt But then don’t you also risk bad press generated by irate users who feel like they’ve been screwed because they missed something important was buried in the fine print?

By: workitout

workitout — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:04:05 +0000

As a lawyer who helps clients with TOS for their sites, I actually agree with most of these comments and Josh’s article. A good TOS is clear and basic and makes sense in plain English (or French, or German, or Japanese, or whatever). Some of the length can’t be helped because of the need to be thorough, but clarity should be the number one goal.

I have had clients complain before that the TOS I wrote for them weren’t “lawyer-y” enough, and should be more official sounding and full of dense language. I have had to explain that they don’t need what they think they need.

Thanks for the good article, Josh.

Chris

By: roosevelt

roosevelt — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:32:53 +0000

To be honest with you, it’s an advantage for business owners to bury these important parts ;).

Because, if the first thing a user reads that their photo will be deleted if they don’t purchase an item, the conversion might drop as high as 50%

Sometimes, when people register they don’t have any intention of buying. But, after using the service they choose to buy, whether they read the TOS or not.

And sometimes they just don’t because a particular TOS is asking them for money.

I take the time to read TOS and other documents, especially if I am buying something online (e.g. product/services)

However, in the beginning I didn’t. But after getting slapped by some of the companies, I made it a habit to read and make sure I keep things in order.

You are not hiding the information, it’s in the paper small or big, it’s not your fault that the user is lazy and doesn’t want to read or can’t read.

By: nrg_alpha

nrg_alpha — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:49:29 +0000

What do you call 1000 dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?

A legal all-you-can-eat-buffet for sharks ;)

By: Bace

Bace — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 12:35:11 +0000

What do you call 1000 dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?

“a good start”? i think the joke was?

By: markfiend

markfiend — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 09:52:19 +0000

What do you call 1000 dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?

Not enough lawyers?

By: nachenko

nachenko — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:44:24 +0000

Honestly, all those agreements are crap for lawyers. Page after page of extremely boring, complicated writing that no-one but a lawyer understands on the first try.

What do you call 1000 dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?