Ask HN: What legal notices do I need on my website?

My $.02 -

I handle quite a bit of PPC of clients using google adwords. There has been quite a bit of buzz about what policies to include to be compliant and I just extrapolated that if it's a requirement for Google when it comes to advertising it's not a bad thing to have on your site for other purposes.

http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/adwords-gets-serious-abo...

I always configure a:

Privacy Policy Terms of Service Copyright symbol Designated agent and DMCA

IANAL, but I think the short version is: if you're not handling money, it probably doesn't matter. If you are handling money, you need a lawyer.

You should have a copyright notice to protect your content. If your website has people sign up then you should have a privacy notice (which people have to agree to when signing up).

The only other thing you may want would be a terms of service and that's fairly rare to see.

If you're in the US and hosting user uploaded content it would be wise to have a DMCA notice and a designated agent. See the DMCA link at the bottom of this page for an example.