Terms of Business and Privacy Policies

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TERMS OF BUSINESS

One of the most important documents for your business is your standard terms and conditions of business.

Your terms establish the contractual basis on which you are prepared to do business with a client or customer and should be aimed at avoiding confusion about your offering and protecting your entitlement to be paid in a range of scenarios.

Your terms of business should not be an after-thought, or considered a ‘mere formality’ to a relationship you expect will be without hiccoughs. It is the document that you will need to turn to when disputes inevitably arise.

Do your Terms of Business give you the right amount of protection?

Our long history in commercial advice and litigation means we have experience in anticipating potential areas of dispute and accounting for these in your terms of business, minimising the chance of disputes arising in the first place.

As a business owner, it is also important that your staff, who are responsible for passing on your terms and conditions to your clients and customers, have a high level of familiarity with their content, so that they do not say anything inconsistent with them to your clients.

When it is time for a review of your terms of business?

  • Is this some particular area of your terms that keeps popping up in disputes?
  • If you do not insist on signed terms, is it clear how they can be accepted in other ways?
  • Is your entitlement to your fees and charges subject to too many conditions or circumstances outside of your control?
  • Do you have a tough enough incentive for people to pay their accounts and invoices on time?
  • If you have to go through the cost and expense of enforcing your entitlements, are those costs recoverable?
  • Have you thought about proper risk allocation?
  • Is there a limitation on any liability you might have to your clients?

PRIVACY POLICIES

In today’s technology driven and data heavy environment, privacy is a hot topic that business should take seriously.

A Privacy Policy defines and states what your business will do with the personal information you collect from your customers.

Do I really need a Privacy Policy? The simple answer is yes, and here’s why:

  • A Privacy Policy is required by law for businesses unless you fall within some limited exceptions.
  • If your business collect personal information from your website visitors, then you need to have a Privacy Policy posted to your website.
  • Now-a-days a Privacy Policy is so important that in determining Google search rankings, their TrustRank algorithm includes factors like the existence of a privacy policy in assessing likely trustworthiness. Not having this updated can negatively affect your page ranking, because if your ‘trust signals’ are too low, your page can be ‘filtered out’ of results.

Drafting a Privacy Policy can sometimes be complex and you don’t want to leave yourself exposed. Getting expert legal advice to draft your Privacy Policy can ensure that your policy reflects your unique business, the industry you operate in, and the technology you use.