Privacy Policy
Last Updated on: May 6th, 2024
PLEASE CAREFULLY READ THIS PRIVACY POLICY IN ITS ENTIRETY PRIOR TO VIEWING AND/OR USING THIS SITE.
DEFINITIONS
This website and any associated websites, sub-sites (“Site”) along with its Content herein are owned by Bon Vivant Travel Co LLC (the “Company,” “we”, “us”, or “our”).
The term “you” shall refer to the user and/or viewer of this Site.
The term “Content” shall refer to any and all written, visual, video and/or audio information or material contained on the Site, including but not limited to all emails received from the Company, written material, blog posts, messages, graphics, memes, photos, images, forms, documents, templates, and the like.
The term “personal information” may include but is not limited to: your name; mailing and email address; telephone number; social media account information; billing and payment information; and your communications sent to us.
The term “non-personal information” may include but is not limited to: your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address; the time, date and length of your visit; traffic data; the referring website; browsing and navigation patterns; and log files.
INTRODUCTION
As the owner of this Site, we understand that your privacy is of critical importance. We are committed to using your personal and non-personal information in a reasonable and responsible manner. The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to inform you about how we collect, use, protect and/or distribute your personal and non-personal information.
We will not collect, use or disclose your personal and non-personal information for any purpose other than as set forth in this Privacy Policy. Additionally, we will not collect more information than is necessary to accomplish those purposes set forth in this Privacy Policy, and will not retain said information longer than is necessary to fulfill said purposes.
This Privacy Policy applies to the personal and non-personal information that we collect related to our:
Site;
products and/or services;
social media platforms;
business operations;
marketing and business development activities;
customer service; and
communications.
PLEASE CAREFULLY READ THIS PRIVACY POLICY IN ITS ENTIRETY. BY USING THIS SITE, YOU VOLUNTARILY AGREE AND ACKNOWLEDGE TO BE BOUND BY THIS PRIVACY POLICY AND YOU CONFIRM THAT YOU HAVE READ, UNDERSTAND AND CONSENT TO THE TERMS OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY AND THE TERMS HEREIN, THEN EXIT THIS SITE AND DO NOT ACCESS OR USE OUR SITE OR CONTENT.
WHAT PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT & USE
We collect your information in two ways: 1) personal information that you have voluntarily provided to us; and 2) non-personal information that is automatically collected using data collection technology.
Personal Information Provided by You:
We collect personal information that you have provided to us voluntarily based on your activity on our Site. We promise to use your personal information only for the purposes for which it was provided. Examples include the following:
Your Interaction with Us: you may voluntarily provide your personal information to us in various ways, including but not limited to when you: opt in to receive free resources and information; to receive downloads; subscribe to our newsletter/email list, purchase a product or service; register for a free or paid event/webinar, course, class, or the like; contact us with an inquiry; provide comments; browse our Site; enter a promotion; fill out a form and/or request to receive other products or services from us.
We use this information to provide you with the requested information, materials, content, newsletters, promotions/special offers, the product/service you purchased, the email we promised, and to improve the performance of our Site.
Communication with Us: If you communicate with us via email, phone, mail, chat, through social media, our contact form on our Site or other form of communication, we will collect your personal information.
We use this information to facilitate communication with you, to respond to inquiries, to provide you with support and to maintain the Company’s records of said communications. We will only use your personal information for such consumer-related services.
Payment Information. Personal information provided by you to purchase products or services from the Company, such as payment and billing information, is collected and processed to fulfill your order and will not be retained any longer than necessary. We use this information to run and manage our Site and business, including but not limited to billing disputes and processing financial information. We use third-party data processors to collect and complete payment transactions. We do not retain nor have access to your payment information.
Social Media Paid Advertising. Should we use social media paid advertising and you engage with such advertisements on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, or others, please be aware that we may collect and utilize data to enhance the relevance of our promotional content. This data includes information related to your interactions with our ads, demographic details, and, in some cases, the location from which you access our advertisements. Our primary goal in utilizing this data is to deliver tailored and engaging content that aligns with your interests and preferences.
Use of our Site. If you are browsing the Site, you are not required to provide personal information to do so.
By voluntarily providing your personal information to us, however, you are providing consent for us to use, collect and process said information. Please note that if you provide your personal information in a public setting, where said information is viewable by others, (e.g. commenting on a blog or social media) you acknowledge and accept that the Company is not responsible for others’ use of that information.
You may have additional rights depending on where you live, please refer to sections below regarding “Territories”.
Non-Personal Information Collected Using Data Collection Technology:
We automatically collect non-personal information regarding your activity on our Site.
This information, if collected, is collected using computer code sent to your computer known as “cookies” and/or is collected using computer code sent to your browser, known as “pixels”. We use this information to maintain and improve our Site, enhance your user experience and for marketing purposes. We will not use your IP address to personally identify you.
HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL AND NON-PERSONAL INFORMATION
We use your personal and non-personal information as follows:
To operate our Site;
To conduct general business operations;
To learn how you navigate within the Site;
To know how many unique users visit the Site;
To obtain research and analytical information for Site improvements;
To tailor content and/or offerings to your interests;
To tailor our marketing efforts;
To fulfill our contractual obligations to you;
To enforce our Terms of Use;
To enforce our Terms & Conditions;
To enforce contractual obligations/agreements and/or seek remedies/damages;
To process our legitimate business interests;
To provide exceptional customer service and communicate with you;
To personalize your experience on our Site;
To improve and develop our Site;
To improve and develop new products or services;
To provide our products and services to you;
To process your purchases and/or downloads;
To process your requests;
To comply with legal requirements;
To protect legal rights and prevent misuse; and
To detect any illegal or unauthorized activities.
We will also automatically enroll you to our email list to receive free additional email messages from the Company any time that you provide your personal information to us. However, you can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe button located at the bottom of every email from the Company. The opt-out list, also known as a suppression list, will be maintained for compliance purposes.
Overall, we use your personal information to manage our relationship with you and business operations.
You may have additional rights depending on where you live, please refer to sections below regarding “Territories”.
WHO HAS ACCESS TO YOUR DATA
We will collect, use, share and otherwise process your personal and non-personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. We may internally share and process your personal and non-personal information within our Company. The Company’s personnel may have access to such information to provide and operate our products or services or Site in the normal course of business.
We will not sell, trade, share or otherwise disclose your personal information to unrelated third-parties without your prior written consent or another valid basis as permitted by law.
At our discretion, we may offer third-party products, services, material, information or website links to other websites on our Site. We have no responsibility or liability for the content or privacy policies associated with these third-parties, who may or may not have their own privacy policies. If we become aware that our third-party providers are using or improperly disclosing your personal or non-personal information, we will take all commercially reasonable steps to cease or correct the improper use and disclosure.
Although we conduct a majority of the data collection, we do engage certain third-party service providers to assist us in providing our products or services to you and for no other purpose. The following providers, which we use, may have access to your personal information:
An email delivery service;
An online webinar/course provider;
A cloud service provider;
A gateway/payment provider;
A hosting service provider; and
A website analytics provider.
We may also disclose aggregated, non-personal information received from third-party providers without restriction.
You may have additional rights depending on where you live, please refer to sections below regarding “Territories”.
ANALYTICS INFORMATION
We use Google Analytics to analyze the usage of our Site and the traffic thereto. It helps us understand how you use and interact with our Site. Google Analytics gathers this information about you and your use of our Site by the use of cookies (for more information please refer to the below section entitled “Cookies Policy”). This information is then gathered as it relates to our Site and is used to create reports about users' interaction with our Site and to understand how traffic is driven to our Site. Additional information about how Google uses data received from its partners, like us, is available at: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/.
We may also use Google Ads and/or Facebook Ads to measure performance and provide advertising campaigns that report back insights into how you and others saw and/or interacted with the ad(s). We may also use remarketing and/or retargeting ads for marketing purposes and to market our products and/or service and/or Site with other third-party companies, such as Instagram/Facebook/Google, based on your past history of visiting our Site. This may be accomplished via pixels, cookies or other similar automatic data collection technology.
The Company reserves the right to use tracking pixels, which collects data on visitors to our Site from social media platforms such as Facebook. This helps us track conversions from targeted ads, track user behavior, collect web traffic, optimize ad performance, and build a targeted audience for remarketing and future marketing purposes, similar to a cookie.
COOKIES POLICY
A cookie is a text file that contains an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server and kept by the browser. Each time the browser requests a page from the server, the identification is delivered back to the server. Cookies are classified as "persistent" or "session" cookies. A persistent cookie will be saved by a web browser and will remain valid until it is destroyed by the user before the expiry date; on the other hand, a session cookie will expire when the web browser is closed at the conclusion of the user session. Cookies do not usually contain information that can be used to personally identify a user, but the personal information that we store about you may be linked to information stored or obtained from cookies.
We use cookies for the following purposes:
authentication – we use cookies to identify you when you visit our Site and as you browse and/or navigate our Site;
active status – we use cookies to help us to determine if you are logged into our Site and/or to remember and process items in your cart;
security – we use cookies as a security protocol to protect your account, including preventing fraudulent use of login credentials, and to protect our Site and services generally;
advertising – we use cookies to tailor our advertisements to be relevant to you; and
analysis – we use cookies to help us to analyze the use and performance of our Site and services.
Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept and/or delete cookies. The methods for doing so vary from browser to browser, and from version to version. However, you can obtain updated information regarding blocking and deleting cookies via the following:
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95647?hl=en (Google Chrome);
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-and-disable-cookies-website-preferences (Firefox);
http://www.opera.com/help/tutorials/security/cookies/ (Opera);
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/17442/windows-internet-explorer-delete-manage-cookies (Microsoft Internet Explorer);
https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/manage-safari-cookies-depf7d5714d4/web (Safari); and
https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10-microsoft-edge-and-privacy (Microsoft Edge).
Please note that the blocking or disabling of certain cookies may have a negative impact on the functions or features of our Site. That is, some features of our Site may not be available to you if you choose to block or disable certain cookies.
RETENTION & PROTECTION
We will only keep your personal information for as long as you want to stay connected with us. As this time will vary, there is no precise duration to provide. As a general rule, however, we will continue to send you email messages and newsletters via our email subscription (which you either signed up for or were automatically enrolled via other activities on our Site) until you opt out of these emails.
For payment and sensitive credit/debit card information, we use a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate (technically a Transport Layer Security aka “TLS certificate”), which is an encryption security protocol to protect this information. The SSL/TLS certificate encrypts this data and ensures that anyone who intercepts the data can only see a scrambled set of characters and the information is safe and only visible to the website in which it was entered. We do not store or process this information personally on our server, but instead use a third-party service provider.
We use safeguards that are commercially responsible and accepted in the industry to protect your personal information. We scan our Site for security breaches using malware software.] You acknowledge that we cannot prevent all misuse and unauthorized access to your personal information and hold us harmless should your personal information be tampered and/or intercepted without your or our consent. This includes a release of all claims associated with the unauthorized third-parties’ use of said information.
Should a data breach occur, we will promptly notify you within 10 business days of the known breach unless you reside in the United Kingdom and/or the European Union, which requires notices of a serious data breach within 72 hours after we become aware of said breach.
You may have additional rights depending on where you live, please refer to sections below regarding “Territories”.
PASSWORD USE & PROTECTION
You may be required to create an account with a username and/or password to login and access certain features and/or content on our Site, or to use certain products or services. You are solely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account’s login credentials (i.e. username and password). Additionally, you are solely responsible for any activities, by you or others, that may occur through your account and accessed via your login credentials.
We are not liable for any unauthorized use of your account or security information or breaches of your account due to the unauthorized use of your login credentials. We highly recommend that you log out of your account after each session ends to prevent unauthorized use or access.
You are not authorized to share your account or login credentials with anyone other than yourself so that others may not gain unauthorized access to our Site or Content via your account and/or login credentials.
You may have additional rights depending on where you live, please refer to sections below regarding “Territories”.
YOU ARE IN CONTROL
If you want to see if we have your personal information and what we have about you, if you want to rectify or update your information, or if you want us to delete your personal information, please contact us at the email below. Note, we reserve the right to refuse your request should we believe the requested changes to be false, incorrect or fraudulent in nature.
Additionally, if you want to unsubscribe from our email list, simply click on the unsubscribe button on the bottom of our emails and follow the instructions. Please note that if you have subscribed to more than one list, then you will need to unsubscribe from each and your opting out may not guarantee that you have been removed from each list. If you experience any issues unsubscribing, please contact us for prompt removal at the email below.
TERRITORIES
Our computer systems, Site and hosted servers are based in the United States of America (“U.S.”) and the Content on our Site is directed only to U.S. residents. Additionally, we may use third-party processors, including payment providers, located in the U.S. As such, your personal and non-personal information may be transferred internationally to and stored on the servers in the U.S. Said information is also processed by us in the U.S. Please note that data protection and privacy regulations may or may not be equal to the level of protection as in other areas throughout the world, such as in Canada, the European Union or the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, amongst others.
By visiting the Site, you unequivocally agree to us collecting and processing your personal and non-personal information in the U.S., the transfer, processing and storage of your personal and non-personal information from your jurisdiction to the U.S., and that only U.S. laws will govern such collection and processing.
Depending on where you reside, however, you may be entitled to additional rights as follows:
By visiting the Site, you unequivocally agree to us collecting and processing your personal and non-personal information in Australia, the transfer, processing and storage of your personal and non-personal information from your jurisdiction to Australia, and that only Australian laws will govern such collection and processing.
GENERAL DATA PROTECTION REGULATION (“GDPR”)
If you live in the European Union (“EU”) or the European Economic Area (“EEA”), then your personal information may fall under the GDPR.
We will only process and/or collect your personal information as follows:
Consent: you will NOT be automatically enrolled in our email list to receive messages and/or newsletters unless you affirmatively consent to the same. You can also opt out of any data collection technology by activating the “Do Not Track” setting in your browser and/or declining the cookies feature and unsubscribing from our emails;
Retention: we will not keep your personal information for any longer than is necessary. You have the right to access, update or delete your personal information from our records and can contact us at the email below;
Date breaches: we will notify you of any data breaches within 72 hours;
Legitimate interests: we will only process your personal information to engage in legitimate business interests, such as entering into a contract with us or for the performance and/or enforcement of a contract, communicating with you, providing our products and/or services to you and your interaction with our Site.
If you have concerns, questions or requests about how we process personal data, write to us at the email address below. If we are not able to adequately address your concerns, you can address them to the data protection Supervisory Authority in your country, pursuant to Article 77 GDPR.
UNITED KINGDOM’S GDPR (“UK GDPR”)
If you live in the UK, then your personal information may fall under the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act of 2018 (“DPA 2018”).
The DPA 2018 sets out the personal information data protection framework for UK residents and replaces the Data Protection Act of 1998, coming into effect on May 25, 2018. Note, it was amended on January 1, 2021 to reflect the UK’s status as outside of the EU. It supplements the UK GDPR, by providing exemptions, extending data protection to national security and defense and sets out the Information Commissioner’s powers/functions.
The UK GDPR is a UK law that became effective on January 1, 2021. It is based on the EU/EEA GDPR, which used to apply to the UK before January 1, 2021, with some changes.
If your personal information was collected before January 1, 2021 (referred to as “legacy date”), then it will still be subject to the EU/EEA GDPR as of December 31, 2020 (aka “frozen GDPR”). As of now, no significant changes exist between the frozen GDPR and UK GDPR and, thus, please refer to the above section entitled “GENERAL DATA PROTECTION REGULATION (“GDPR”) for your additional rights prior to January 1, 2021.
We will only process and/or collect your personal information as follows:
Consent: you will NOT be automatically enrolled in our email list to receive messages and/or newsletters unless you affirmatively consent to the same. You can also opt out of any data collection technology by activating the “Do Not Track” setting in your browser and/or declining the cookies feature and unsubscribing from our emails;
Retention: we will not keep your personal information for any longer than is necessary. You have the right to access, update or delete your personal information from our records and can contact us;
Date breaches: we will notify you of any data breaches within 72 hours;
Legitimate interests: we will only process your personal information to engage in legitimate business interests, such as entering into a contract with us or for the performance and/or enforcement of a contract, communicating with you, providing our products and/or services to you and your interaction with our Site.
If you have concerns, questions or requests about how we process personal data, write to us at the email address below. If we are not able to adequately address your concerns, you can address them to the data protection Commissioner in your country.
BRAZIL’S LGPD (“BRAZIL’S GDPR”)
If you live in Brazil, then your personal information may fall under Brazil’s LGPD (Lei Geral de Protecao de Dados Pessoais - often referred to as “Brazil’s GDPR”). Brazil’s GDPR was signed into law and has been effective since September 18, 2020. The laws are drafted and based on the EU/EEA’s and UK’s GDPR.
We will only process and/or collect your personal information as follows:
Consent: you will NOT be automatically enrolled in our email list to receive messages and/or newsletters unless you affirmatively consent to the same. You can also opt out of any data collection technology by activating the “Do Not Track” setting in your browser and/or declining the cookies feature and unsubscribing from our emails;
Retention: we will not keep your personal information for any longer than is necessary. You have the right to access, update or delete your personal information from our records and can contact us;
Date breaches: we will notify you of any data breaches within a reasonable time;
Legitimate interests: we will only process your personal information to engage in legitimate business interests, such as entering into a contract with us or for the performance and/or enforcement of a contract, communicating with you, providing our products and/or services to you and your interaction with our Site.
If you have concerns, questions or requests about how we process personal data, write to us at the email address below. If we are not able to adequately address your concerns, you can address them to the Data Protection Officer in your country.
CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS
If you reside in California, your personal information entitles you to additional rights and may be governed under the California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA”) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”).
CalOPPA: A “Do Not Track” (“DNT”) is a setting that can be activated on certain browsers to block behavioral tracking from third-party services, such as Google Adwords. Your browser may allow you to automatically transmit a DNT signal to websites that you visit. Please note, there is no consensus in the industry as to what constitutes a DNT. Currently, we do not alter our practices if it receives a DNT signal from your and/or a visitor’s browser. To learn more about DNT visit: http://www.allaboutdnt.com.
CCPA: You have the right to request what we have regarding your personal information and of which has been collected over the last 12 months from the date of your formal request. Upon receipt, we will disclose:
The categories of personal information we collected about you;
The categories of sources for the personal information we collected about you;
Our business and commercial purposes for collecting that information;
The categories of third-parties with whom we shared your personal information;
The categories of personal information disclosed for a business purpose in the preceding 12 months; and
The specific pieces of personal information we collected about you.
You also have a right to request that we delete this same information, subject to certain exceptions. Please contact us at the email address below for such a request.
VIRGINIA RESIDENTS
If you reside in Virginia, your personal information entitles you to additional rights and may be governed under the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA).
Virginia residents have the right to request access, correction, deletion, and sale-opt-out of their personal data. You can exercise these rights by contacting us at the email address below with your request or any questions you may have. We will respond within 45 days.
We will not sell your personal data without your consent. We will only share your personal data with third parties who are necessary to provide our services to you. We will take all reasonable steps to protect the privacy and security of your personal data.
CAN-SPAM ACT OF 2003 COMPLIANCE
In compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, all unsolicited commercial emails from the Company will clearly state the sender of the email, a legitimate physical address of the Company, a relevant subject line, that the email is an advertisement or a marketing solicitation and will include a visible and operable unsubscribe mechanism below the message to be honored within 10 business days.
CHANGES TO THE PRIVACY POLICY
We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to change, modify, revise, amend, or otherwise alter in any way this Privacy Policy, our Site, and/or its Content at any time without notice to you. Should any such changes or revisions occur, the most recent version will be posted on the Site, and will become effective immediately. By using the Site or Content after the date posted above, you are deemed to have consented to the revised/updated Privacy Policy.
Should any material changes occur to our Privacy Policy, we will contact you via email or by a prominent message on our Site.
CONTACTING US:
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, your rights, the practices of this Site, or would like to update/remove your personal information, please contact us as follows:
By emailing us directly at: bonvivanttravelco@gmail.com
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STEP 2: Site Terms of Use Page
General Information
Most websites use the terms “Disclaimers,” “Disclosures,” “Terms & Conditions,” “Terms of Use,” “Terms of Purchase,” and others interchangeably.
A disclaimer disclaims liability while a disclosure informs.
Really, it doesn’t matter what title you use as long as the agreement sets forth all the necessary terms/provisions specific to your business needs. Typically, the Terms & Conditions and Terms of Purchase are for specific clients, such as when they purchase a product or service while the Terms of Use is only for all viewers. For ease, I’ve combined the disclaimers with the disclosures so that your website is less congested in the footer.
Technically, this Terms of Use page is not legally required, but it is highly recommended because it also forms the basis of your business relationship with your viewers and allows the viewer to make informed decisions. It is essentially a unilateral contract for which the viewer is implicitly agreeing to all of the terms by using your website, products or services.
The disclaimer provisions contained within the Terms of Use advise the viewers concerning liabilities and what you do not guarantee. It can limit (or eliminate) your liability, prevent harmful litigation, and establish the conditions of your website. Essentially, the disclaimers are the legal protection side of your website, products and services.
The disclosure provisions contained within the Terms of Use are about content protection and informing the viewer who you are, what you do and (more importantly) don’t do. Thousands of people are searching the internet for the latest and greatest information, advice and tips. If your website features certain advice, you want to ensure that the true “purpose” of your website is stated. There are two reasons for this: 1) the disclosures will inform users about how they should view your content and 2) it protects you from any misleading or untrue statements and misunderstandings that could result in legal issues.
Here are the disclaimers and disclosures to include, if relevant to your business:
Disclaimers that you must include:
Educational/Information Purposes;
Assumption of Risk Disclaimer;
Errors and Omissions Disclaimer;
Severability;
Prompt Enforcement;
Limitation of Liability;
Disclaimers of Warranties;
Indemnification;
Termination;
Choice of Law and Jurisdiction; and
Entire Agreement.
Disclaimers to include if they apply to your business:
Fair Use Notice;
Views Expressed Disclaimer;
Advertising Disclaimer;
Testimonial Disclaimer;
Survey Disclaimer;
Earnings Disclaimer;
Financial Advice Disclaimer; and
Feedback/Reviews.
Another important disclaimer is a waiver of liability used when providing physical exercise programs, activities or classes. Oftentimes these are provided in the terms and conditions when the client purchases the class. Also, if you provide contests or giveaways, you’ll also want to include a separate disclaimer and disclosure surrounding the rules and what the viewers can expect. These two are not included in these Terms of Use as they are usually separate agreements.
Fair Use Notice: include this disclaimer if you use any photos, gifs, memes, and other copyright material that you did not create yourself. Fair use allows you to use a copyrighted work without the copyright owner’s permission for purposes of: criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, or research. It is often best to simply give the work credit than to risk infringement.
Views Expressed Disclaimer: include this disclaimer if your website/content is more opinionated than factual in nature. Typically, this is seen in personal opinion writing by experts or professionals working in a field of study, if you are endorsing/critiquing a product/company or to denote your employer or associated organization does not endorse your views or activities. Essentially, this disclaims association with other persons or entities.
Advertising Disclaimer: if your Site includes advertisements, then you should use this disclaimer. It tells your viewers that if any advertisements appear on your Site that you do not endorse the product, service or company advertised. This limits your liability should the thing advertised from your Site cause issues, damages or offend your viewers.
Testimonial Disclaimer: this is legally required if you include testimonials, reviews or endorsements. The FTC requires that you disclose if there is a relationship between the company and the reviewer. e.g. if you paid for that person to write a testimonial or gave them a free product in exchange for a review. Note, such disclaimers should also appear as near as possible to the actual testimonials on your Site as well.
Survey Disclaimer: if your Site has a survey for viewers to participate in, then you’ll want to include this disclaimer. It outlines what a survey participant can expect from volunteering their information for a survey. It also warns that the data that they provide will be shared with third-parties.
Earnings Disclaimer: this disclaimer is mandatory if you are selling a product or service that is designed to generate income for your clients.
Financial Advice Disclaimer: In the U.S., only a licensed and/or registered investment/financial advisor is allowed to offer investment advice. If you discuss investments, then you should include this disclaimer. But this disclaimer will not cover you if you do in fact illegally sell investments or investment management services without being a licensed and/or registered financial advisor.
Disclosures you must include:
License to use;
Rules of Conduct;
Intellectual Property Notice and how others can share your content, legally;
Age restrictions;
Sale of Business or Assets; and
Incorporation of your privacy policy.
Disclosures to include if they apply to your business:
Your affiliate disclosures;
Links to other websites;
Health disclosures;
Your digital product policy; and
Your refund policy.
Affiliate Disclosures: If you are being compensated - financially or otherwise, such as complimentary product or service- by companies for you to endorse or review their product or service or you receive a commission when users purchase a product from affiliate links from your Site, then you are required to have a disclosure statement by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”). This lets the viewer know that you are being compensated by the companies whose products or services that you mention or for the products that are purchased through the link on your Site. Transparency is key.
In addition to the FTC, most affiliate programs require you to have an affiliate disclosure.
FTC have strict guidelines and require affiliate disclosures to be displayed “clear and consciously” and as close to your affiliate link or endorsed product/service as possible. An affiliate disclosure is required on every single page that includes an endorsement or affiliate link. You must also disclose your relationship with the affiliate on your Disclaimer/Disclosure/Terms & Conditions/Terms of Use page.
Health/Medical Disclosures: if you share information about health, well being, nutrition, fitness and the like (if you are a health and wellness coach, life coach, fitness coach, or provide recipes), you will need to share a health/medical disclosure.
It should outline your qualifications, that what you offer is not medical advice, and that the user should not disregard or delay seeking medical advice from a medical professional. Oftentimes, coaching can be mistaken with therapy or other mental health treatments as you will most often discuss problems or issues related to the person’s emotional and mental well being, so as a coach you’ll want to make it clear that you are not providing therapy.
Refund Policy: If you sell anything on your Site, then you need a refund policy. Note that a more extensive version will be included in your “Terms of Purchase” page, which are terms that the Client agrees to right before they are allowed to purchase your product or service (e.g. they check a box saying that they agree to be bound, and then the payment is processed). This general refund policy is for those who haven’t purchased your product or services yet - but instead, want to know how you operate.
Your refund policy will vary greatly depending on what you want to do. This really needs to be accurate and updated for your business. I have included what to write for a no refund policy. However, if you provide refunds, then you will need to specifically tailor this section to your own needs although I have included examples for you to edit.
A good refund policy will do include the following:
Timeframe - you need to let your clients know how many hours, days, months notice you require from the date of purchase;
Non-refundable products- do you sell multiple products, like digital products that you want to be non-refundable? Then make that explicitly clear. If you provide refunds for physical products, but not digital, that needs to be stated. Also, if you provide for auto enrolled plans, such as subscription services, these will differ because they will be auto charged every week, month or year depending on the term (unlike a payment plan);
Consequences- you need to tell them what happens if they seek a refund. e.g. will the customer lose access to the product or services and future updates;
How to request a refund- you need to let them know how to request a refund;
What to expect after their request- let the client know how long it might take for the refund to be issued.
Also, in the refund policy it is important to make your client aware that payment plans are not like subscription services that can be canceled at any time, but rather provided for their convenience to pay the lump sum over time.
How to Use
Similar to the Privacy Policy page, the Terms of Use page may vary slightly from one business to another depending on the type of product or services you provide. Again, it is important to customize this page to your business’s needs.
Steps:
Create a Blank page for your website and entitle it “Terms of Use”, which will be hyperlinked to the footer on your website (covered last). This page can also be hidden from the main navigation tabs;
Review the below yellow highlighted sections- insert your information into the yellow highlighted text and delete any text that is not relevant to your business, as noted; and
Copy and paste into the Terms of Use page.