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Ask HN: Plain English ToS - Is This Legal?

Dear HN, My website is now getting enough traffic that my lawyer encouraged me to draft Terms of Service. I'm loathe to make one of those legalese laden nonsense pages, so I tried to point out the dangers and restrictions of using TrailBehind.com in plain English. Does this document provide me any legal cover from the types of dangers it intends to protect against? Like a guy getting lost because my map data was wrong? http://www.andrewljohnson.com/article/Plain%20English%20Terms%20of%20Service

eds 17y ago
Haha. I like it. Looks good to me, though I'm not a lawyer. Only thing I could think of adding would be a sentence that explicitly says something like "you assume all responsibility for your use of the site and any information you get from it."
noodle 17y ago
i think you could summarize it better. maybe... "disclaimer: never use trailbehind for any reason"
huhtenberg 17y ago
The target audience of T&C legalese is not your users, it's their lawyers if it ever comes to that. Create proper, lawyer-friendly version and then make a non-binding user-friendly summary in plain English if you feel like it.
ErrantX 17y ago
No. You should never write your own license - the same applies here. You will get it wrong (simply by not being a lawyer :)) and it wont cover what it is supposed to. Get a proper ToS drafted and then do what Creative Commons does with their licenses: do a page with just a few lines detailing in plain terms what it means (REALLY simple, what you wrote is far too complicated - the main off put for a ToS document is the wall of text) with a link to the actual legal document.
RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
Direct link to save time: http://www.andrewljohnson.com/article/Plain%20English%20Terms%20of%20Service http://www.andrewljohnson.com/article/Plain%20English%20Term...
michael_dorfman 17y ago
If you have a lawyer, why are you asking for legal advice from a bunch of amateurs? Discuss your concerns with your lawyer, and pay him to draft a TOS document. Ask him to use the reader-friendliest language that protects your interests.
- andrewljohnson 17y ago
  I sent these to my lawyer for review as well. Unfortunately, his advice costs hundreds of dollars an hour, and yours is free.
  - michael_dorfman 17y ago
    ...and in each case, you get what you pay for. Listen, I speak from experience: a few thousand bucks in legal fees could have literally saved me millions. Don't skimp where the legal profession is concerned.

eds 17y ago

Haha. I like it. Looks good to me, though I'm not a lawyer. Only thing I could think of adding would be a sentence that explicitly says something like "you assume all responsibility for your use of the site and any information you get from it."

noodle 17y ago

i think you could summarize it better. maybe... "disclaimer: never use trailbehind for any reason"

huhtenberg 17y ago

The target audience of T&C legalese is not your users, it's their lawyers if it ever comes to that. Create proper, lawyer-friendly version and then make a non-binding user-friendly summary in plain English if you feel like it.

ErrantX 17y ago

No. You should never write your own license - the same applies here. You will get it wrong (simply by not being a lawyer :)) and it wont cover what it is supposed to. Get a proper ToS drafted and then do what Creative Commons does with their licenses: do a page with just a few lines detailing in plain terms what it means (REALLY simple, what you wrote is far too complicated - the main off put for a ToS document is the wall of text) with a link to the actual legal document.

RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago

Direct link to save time: http://www.andrewljohnson.com/article/Plain%20English%20Terms%20of%20Service http://www.andrewljohnson.com/article/Plain%20English%20Term...

michael_dorfman 17y ago

If you have a lawyer, why are you asking for legal advice from a bunch of amateurs? Discuss your concerns with your lawyer, and pay him to draft a TOS document. Ask him to use the reader-friendliest language that protects your interests.

andrewljohnson 17y ago
I sent these to my lawyer for review as well. Unfortunately, his advice costs hundreds of dollars an hour, and yours is free.
- michael_dorfman 17y ago
  ...and in each case, you get what you pay for. Listen, I speak from experience: a few thousand bucks in legal fees could have literally saved me millions. Don't skimp where the legal profession is concerned.