Collection of documents that startups commonly need: Privacy Policy, NDA, etc... | Hacker News Reader

Collection of documents that startups commonly need: Privacy Policy, NDA, etc...

pearwords.com

220 pointsx0325 comments

http://www.docstoc.com/documents/legal/

http://www.orrick.com/practices/corporate/emergingCompanies/...

http://www.businessinsider.com/legal-documents-for-your-star...

I like the idea, but I just don't see startups needing or using an email disclaimer. Plus they are pretty much worthless legal wise - http://www.economist.com/node/18529895.

Thanks...yeah, we appreciate that an email disclaimer isn't necessarily the most effective means legally, but they're still in such wide-spread use that they do carry a certain weight to them that a lot of people find re-assuring to have, hence their inclusion.

We hope a lot more people will find the privacy policy, NDA and the coming terms of use more helpful...and we hope to have some other documents up soon, too...so, don't forget to bookmark it! :)

Sorry, but this is why those silly disclaimers continue to propagate. They are nothing but noise in most cases. An exception might be tax advice disclosures.

The comments for that article are worth a read:

     Zouf wrote:

     While you are mostly correct, there is one good legal use of an email footer:
     to declare the data above it as confidential, and therefore comply with
     confidentiality agreements that protect only data that has been explicitly
     declared as confidential.

I found this one particularly funny:

     stewsnooze wrote:

     Practice what you preach.......

     This e-mail may contain confidential material. If you are not an intended
     recipient, please notify the sender and delete all copies. It may also contain
     personal views which are not the views of The Economist Group. We may
     monitor e-mail to and from our network...

http://www.economist.com/comment/886653#comment-886653

I wouldn't start leaving them out just yet.

Well, they do mention in the article that they do it themselves....

> Many firms—The Economist included—automatically append these sorts of disclaimers to every message sent from their e-mail servers, no matter how brief and trivial the message itself might be.

This isn't true. Email disclaimers can't unilaterally create a contract between the sender and receiver. This doesn't mean they are legally worthless.

Two legally useful email disclaimers: "this is not legal advice" and "this is not an offer to buy or sell securities".

These are both legally binding, because they merely remove potential ambiguity from an email and explicitly state the absence of a contract. Without the disclaimer, the text of an email might otherwise be interpreted to mean that a contract was present.

Really? If the email actually looks like an offer to buy or sell securities, I would imagine the disclaimer could be viewed as either mindless boilerplate with no genuine intent behind it or subterfuge.

Like, I wouldn't imagine you could send an email along the lines of, "Hey, I'm looking to buy some securities. You in, bro? DISCLAIMER: This is not an offer to buy or sell securities."

Everything gets tested at the extremes, but for the most part, email disclaimers are there as minor CYA measures for the sender of the email. Lawyers use them all the time, for instance, so that nobody misinterprets their daily chatter or off-the-cuff advice as constituting an official attorney-client relationship with the recipient.

Obviously you can't hide behind an email disclaimer to C your A if your A is blatantly violating the letter or spirit of the disclaimer.

Your specific example doesn't read to me like subterfuge at all. It looks to me like an informal discussion which may lead to a purchase of securities. After you say "yes" via email, we will probably construct an actual contract specifying details.

The disclaimer makes certain that both you and I realize this isn't an offer, just a conversation.

You might get into trouble if you routinely engaged in securities transactions via email with such a disclaimer. But if you handle all actual trades with a legalistic form containing no disclaimer, and informal conversations in email with a disclaimer, the disclaimer is likely to hold up in court.

> Like, I wouldn't imagine you could send an email along the lines of, "Hey, I'm looking to buy some securities. You in, bro? DISCLAIMER: This is not an offer to buy or sell securities."

With the disclaimer, I expect this would be read as an "offer to treat". Not a contract offer, but rather, an invitation to negotiate one.

Coupons printed in the newspaper are also mere offers to treat, which is why they can be dishonoured.

Of course, I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.

The privacy policy states

  PearWords does not...
    Place "cookies" (small text files) on your system for any reason.

I would beg to differ, it may be Google Analytics dropping the cookies on pearwords' behalf, but they're still there. (http://d.pr/D3oy)

Go ahead and use full URLs. HN will shorten its display if it's too long, and we prefer to see where we're going.

I guess this is a bit of special case as the service this person is using only has these short URLs :-)

Yes, I should have explicitly stated it was linking to a screenshot on droplr.

Apologies.

I know you are not offering legal advice, which IMO is good, but has the language in any of these documents been looked over by a profession/practicing lawyer? Other than that, these are great; I'll be using the Privacy Policy and NDA.

We feel all the documents on PearWords are solid, concise and fair to both parties.

That said, we've not had these certified by a practicing lawyer simply because even if we do most people would still rather have a lawyer they know and trust do it for them before signing a contract, especially considering the variety of territories that PearWord's audience is located. It should be a fair bit cheaper to have a lawyer look over and change where appropriate any details than have them write an original document for you.

PearWords strongly advise that any person have a lawyer vet and modify where necessary any legal documents before signing them, no matter the situation.

Thanks for your comment! :)

So what is the downside to you vetting these documents via a lawyer first? Ensuring that the documents are even a little bit better will save your users collectively a lot of legal fees.

We'll look into it, we really will. But we'll still have to strongly advise everyone to again have them independently verified within their own territory and by a lawyer familiar with their situation.

There's no way around that.

I think this is the best solution; as laws differ from mile to mile.

This is excellent, thank you to whoever is putting it together.

I second that.

On a side note - It's very strange that there's no email address, no name of the person/persons behind this, no twitter account etc. Just the contact form.

I mean, I'd like to follow whoever did this on twitter.

Thanks! :)

I'm working on getting us a "Team" page to showcase all our talent with pictures, Twitter links, etc...

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