How to develop a Terms of Use policy?

What is a good way to go about developing a Terms of Use policy for my website? What are "the basics" such a policy should include?

Hi Christa,

Your site's "Terms of Use" outlines the relationship between your visitors and your site.  This policy generally contains such information as examples of unacceptable behavior on your site (sometimes under a section called "Site Conduct"), a "Disclaimer of Warranty" section, and another one about your "Limitation of Liability".  You can find out about the exact legal wording used in these sections by looking at examples of terms of use on other sites (the wording is very similar).

There are often other sections included in a terms of use policy and which ones to include can depend on the type of site you have.  For example, if your site enables a visitor to create a user account, then this mechanism will also be described in your terms of use.

Here's a good example of what to include in a terms of use policy with links to some examples you can check out:

http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-guide/terms-use

Have a look at examples of such policies used on sites that are similar to yours, so you can get a feel on how to formulate your own terms of use.  Just make sure that you tailor the policy accordingly to your own site and that everything included in it is relevant and makes sense.  It also helps to get it reviewed by others and ideally by a lawyer with experience putting together website policies.

Hope this helps.

Yann

develop a Terms of Use policy :- Back link , link building and doing sco of site these are better and safe way to promote our site and getting high rank in google

 [Referer link removed by admin violation of Rules & Standards]

One way of developing terms of use policy is to look at other web sites terms of use

Such as the community standards here at tech soup

http://www.techsoup.org/community/standards/index.cfm

Which can include statements like our no spamming ever policy

No Spamming. Ever. Message boards and billboards are two different things. Please refrain from posting advertisements, promotional materials, or any other forms of solicitation for goods or services. In no part of the forums are you allowed to post spam or promote or offer any goods or services for sale. This includes promotional statements about your company or organization, as well as advertisements for free services or products made within the context of another message; community members will determine what constitutes spam. You should also be warned that overly enthusiastic endorsements of any product (whether or not the author is affiliated with the vendor) may be flagged as spam by our moderators. If you wish to lessen your risk of being flagged as a spammer, you may post a disclaimer stating that you are not affiliated with a company or service. You are also forbidden to contact users off board to promote your services. If you have been asked by a TechSoup moderator to refrain from a particular posting behavior and you ignore these warnings, your account will be terminated.

Cheeky Dave!  :)