Every affiliate marketer is required to use some legal documents to run their business wich includes promoting other peoples products or making your own and providing people with marketing materials . Without these documents you may lose everything, as with a single complaint from your customer can shutdown your business. Here is a list of legal documents that you must have to protect your business and yourself, if the situation arises.
Privacy Policy
This is a document that describes how you are collecting and using your visitors information, which an autoresponder is used to create a list as it will only collect names and email addresses. It should clearly indicate that you will not use the information of your visitors for any other purposes and you will not share their personal information with any other company. Without this document, you may face problems from your visitors and other agencies like the Federal Trade Commission.
Terms of Use & Disclaimer
This document limits your responsibility to your website users. It really protects you. This document usually contains Use of Site, licenses, limitation of liability, miscellaneous items, etc. For example, if you have a website where people are allowed to post their views about some products, then you may want to mention that these views are just the opinions of the visitors and are not the thoughts of the site owner.
Affiliate marketers also have to put a disclaimer when providing links and banner to promote services and products, for which I have done on a few posts as you got to metion now that if customers click on the links and buy a product, that the owner of the website will receive a small commission.
Affiliate Agreement
This form is needed if you are running an affiliate program. It is used to set the terms and conditions that must be followed by your affiliates. Affiliates are then required to observe these rules while they advertise your products. Affiliates will be required to sign this agreement before starting the business with you. You can freeze their commissions or cancel their membership if they are not following this agreement.
No-Spam Agreement
Spamming is an activity where you send email messages to a person who has not allowed you to do so. Also posting your ads in the newsgroups and forums where such activity is not allowed is also called spamming. You should only post your advertisements in the forums and newsgroups that allow you to do so or if they are on the same topic. Similarly, posting your ads in the chat rooms and message boards is not permitted and is called spam.
In a no-spam agreement, it is stated that you have an anti-spam policy. It is also stated that you will not send any unsolicited emails to advertise your programs, services or products without the permission of user. Clickbank provides a list of companies and websites that people are not allowed to spam and send emails, as this would be breaking their contract.
Copyright Notice
Copyright notice is to protect your website content and graphics. It tells the visitors how they can use this content. If you don’t want to share your website content, you should indicate it in copyright notices. Without this notice, people may steal your website content and graphics. If someone wants to use your content or graphics then thet are required to get permission from you. Otherwise, they are breaking the copyright laws and they may suffer from that. If you want to allow people to use you website information, then you should mention it clearly in the copyright notice which content, graphics or products are free to use by anyone.
You can also try to get a commercial license from the marketer, which allows to use graphics for other peoples gains, however keep in mind copyright laws could be different depedning on the country as the US and the UK have laws that are different when using quotes, names or designs.
Earnings Disclaimer
If you are selling any information package or running an affiliate program then you need this document. Without this document your business may be shut down by FTC. This document details what the commission is and what the affiliate marketer gets paid, as taxes and other costs get taken into account. Before starting your online business, make sure that your business is safe by using the above mentioned documents. Without these documents your business is in the danger.
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