Terms & Conditions Legal Requirements

[Robertc]

It is now a legal requirement that any online contracts such as Terms & Conditions for a website has two distinct approval points ie meets the 'Two Clicks' criteria.

This means that the registered user has to agree to the Terms not once but at least twice during the registration process.

There is also a requriement that any changes to the Terms are agreed too using the 'Two Clicks' and that there is a periodical (Not defined currently but accepted period is max 18 months) refreshement of this agreement.

What plans are there to facilitate this legal requirement as currently as far as I can see I am in breach of this and there is no easy way to solve this with out doing a hack to the site's code.

[danzo]

Hmm...is this new?...where does this legal requirment apply?...

I see that in the registration page, there is at "check-box/radio" button you need to "click 1st" to select Our Terms of Use: * Yes, I Accept!

and then the Submit button at the bottom which your can change the text to say
"By Clicking Submit, You agree to register and our term of use"... which mean the user will have to "click twice to agree to terms" already... isnt it?

The other easy way to for geo to add a "Third time" is to pop-up a javascript confirm message (like "yes, I agree to register and the terms of use [confirm]..." before the user browser actually submit the form data to your server....

[Robertc]

New ...no... just now being looked at by the courts as an enforcement issue.

The 'two clicks' criteria is very clearly set out by the courts as being a record transaction that clearly shows that this contract was entered into on this date/time and the two clicks where at this date/time.

Therefore there needs to be some new fields added, and records recorded in some existing tables.

Like in 'userdata' recording Orginal terms agreement and last date/time of agreement

And in 'userdata_history' the dates/times of every time they have said they agree to Terms

Also will need an interface to allow admin to send out emails asking for users to 'reafirm' their agreements and suspending their accounts untill they do.

[identity]

Ideally, the TOS agreement should be pulled out separately from the registration form.

I wouldn't use a popup as you then deal with popup blockers and it makes the site less accessible... so you adhere to one set of rules at the cost of others.

By separating it, with a two screen process before the registration form, you are in fact saying that no one could have registered without bypassing the terms agreement to begin with. This little routine might even be able to be called separately without the registration and put on a set timeframe to be called up for the reaffirmation.

[Robertc]

Nice to see I'm making sense......

THe seperation would be the best solution thing about this more as it would then allow the 'Re-Affimation' to occur as part of the login process for a user based on a per user trigger next time they login.

The pop-up blocker thing is also a good point and another reason why i don't like using work arounds.

[danzo]

Best to write in to geosupport about these operational scenarios... they are keen to help make the script more useful to everyone in real commercial usage scenarios...

A temporary way to have a intermediate page showing the terms...you can use the pre-registration splash page for this purpose for the usergroup.

[Robertc]

I have found the best way to get cahnges/new features/updates added to any product is to get some support from other users before approaching the developers.

Also these forums are actively watched by the developers and other peoples feed back can help identify the best solution thus helping the developers come up with a solution that works for the majority of users not just one.

Therefore anyone else got any comments, ideas, requirements like this for the Terms of Use.

This 'Two clicks' requirement appears to be a new standard appearing in some countries as a response to the increasing amounts of business transactions occuring on the internet that involves a formal contract solution.

[identity]

I think what has been mentioned so far sounds good.

I think there should also be the ability to throw a global switch, that prompts everyone to reaffirm, in case you make major changes. This should not be done based on a file being changed... imagine the frustration of requiring everyone to go through this every time you go back in to correct a spelling error or to make minor word changes.

Also, I think the ability to toggle this at the individual or group level would be good, but not critical for the effort it might take.

The ability though to set a future date though between reaffirming might be good though.

I would follow the lead of some of the majors like eNom or Google. When they make major changes, you are presented with the terms and an acceptance form as soon as you login after the changes.

I think it would also be good to be able to serve up the terms and/or a separate privacy policy from the database to mulitple locations.... almost like a module. For instance, I have the terms listed as a separate page that members and non-members can access at anytime which I imagine is also a requirement, and then have to make sure that it matches up with the Page Management entry box that is served up during registration. Two copies of one thing though is a waste of resources as well as inviting discrepencies.

[Robertc]

The issue of where the Terms is currently stored is an issue i was ignoring as low priority but it is still an issue as it is hard to maintain and if u want to use it as a normal static HTML page on the site you cannot.

It would be better to have it as a HTML file refered to by the program/module for display purposes, that way it can be just one copy, centralised and easier to maintain/correct typos only once and also can have more HTML code loaded in it for 'formating'

[Robertc]

I have now work through the requirements for T's & C's and they are as below:-

1. The ability to force users to accept T's & C's everytime they are updated.

2. The ability to force users to accept T's & C's everytime they place an ad/auction.

3. The ability to monitor when the user last accepted T's & C's.

4. The ability to turn on/off the requirements at a user plus group level.