Privacy policy and Terms of service templates?
I see a lot of indiehackers having landing pages with privacy policy and TOS, is there a known template that I can use for these and just substitute the company name?
I don't have the resources to pay a lawyer to draft this for me.
Edit: I'm in EU so I think it has to deal with GDPR.
Hi @indie001 , I had a lot of success with getterms.io!
Affordable customise to generate template (that you then customize further of course), even have a specific one for SaaS: https://getterms.io/web-app-privacy-policy
I'm in the process of finalising it for my app. I've found that some of the pieces are for more purchasable products - but makes sense because it tries to be widely applicable. It's well written!
This seems nice but kind of pricey.
Just curious what you mean by pricey? The most expensive one I've seen on that site is $45, am I missing something?
If you had a lawyer draft those it could easily cost you more than $1000.
Yeah, I need that one ($45) and it seems pricey for just clicking checkboxes which is essentially adding/removing paragraphs. I was hoping for free or at least something cheaper ($20 or less).
Yeah, you're right $45 is a lot for the functionality but you're paying them for the actual text you get and not the functionality of their web-app. If you hired a lawyer for this, they would also go and put things together based on their template, except they would charge you 10-20x. Don't get me wrong, I prefer the lawyer, I just mean to highlight that this seems like very good value.
As an analogy: The story goes that Picasso was sitting in a Paris café when an admirer approached and asked if he would do a quick sketch on a paper napkin. Picasso politely agreed, swiftly executed the work, and handed back the napkin — but not before asking for a rather significant amount of money. The admirer was shocked: “How can you ask for so much? It took you a minute to draw this!” “No”, Picasso replied, “It took me 40 years”
Yeah I get what you're saying but I don't even know if they're compatible with GDPR.
Also, I don't have the resources for a lawyer now but I see almost every startup having this info so I figured that there must exist good templates out there. Just like they exist for freelancer contracts.
Hi @indie001 I've been using Termify for a while now and it's pretty good actually. They let you create unlimited policies made specifically for your business for a very affordable price of $2.95.
You can check the website at https://termify.io
These are geared towards e-commerce, however, with a quick edit can be fitted to work with SaaS businesses as well. Perhaps best of all, they're free.
Any template you end up using should be modified to reflect your unique business. Most templates treat your business just like everyone else’s, but your business is unique.
Consider:
Your industry. You’ll have completely different needs for the Terms of Service agreement based on the industry (medical, financial).
Your business practices. Your Terms of Service should include clauses related to user-generated content if your website/app allows users to register and create content.
Your preferences. You adjust your Terms of Service agreement as you wish, it's the contract between you and your users.
Automattic (WordPress.com) released their Privacy Policy and Terms of Use under a Creative Commons license:
P.S. Hopefully our video on how to use free T&C templates can help you determine what you can use from templates and examples and what not -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3OTsTUShV0&list=PLCcc8GUq-OqGFHT-cM0nxuvjn9efyF4Cf&index=5
Thanks.
My industry is software and business type is SaaS.
A couple of useful clauses to add in the Terms of Service:
The Privacy Policy should include GDPR wording if the SaaS app would have customers from the EU. GPDP adds a couple of new requirements for SaaS app developers:
What is a reputable source for finding these templates?
Take a look https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/privacy-notices-transparency-and-control/privacy-notices-under-the-eu-general-data-protection-regulation/
It's not a website for templates; it's info about GDPR and Privacy policy/notice compliance.
Hey there! I just launched saasagreements.co , it's global compliance based (GDPR, CPRA & CCPA) based privacy policy generator. Hope this will help you.
How about Iubenda? You can generate a privacy and cookie policy in seconds for $27/year https://www.iubenda.com/en
Interesting HN discussion on TOS and privacy policy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2910571
If you don't want to pay a lawyer, you can check Amazon for a book on legal forms and templates for web & software development.
I think reading a chapter on the theory of intellectual property rights is super worthwhile anyways—without it, the clauses seem way more arbitrary than they are with some of the fundamentals learned.