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Ask HN: Do you have a Privacy Policy and ToS for your side projects?

24 points by mromnia ↗ HN
Do you have a Privacy Policy and/or Terms of Service page on your sideproject's website? If so, how did you get it? Did you write yourself, had a lawyer write it or used some online generator? What about a cookie consent popup?

Myself, I've recently realized I have a few sideprojects online that don't provide that information, so I started looking into it. If I find a decent template I'll probably add it to some of my sites.

20 comments

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skaplun
Are you providing a paid service? privacy, tos, faq, help, about us, our mission, etc etc pages can help to confirm your authenticty to someone who intends to buy.

Cookie layer is mandatory in the EU

mromnia
If something's generating money, I'd say it's a bit different. I'm mostly taking about free stuff on your github.io pages.
chauhankiran
Then it might not needed and ToC or Policy as in most cases it will not going to take serious user data that user are primarily concern with. But, If you are storing data from users, then I must say you need to give an idea about how you will going to use those data.
tsyd
I use a paid generator: https://termsfeed.com/. It asks you a few questions about how you will be using the data and generates the text based on your answers.
tpetry
Termsfeed.com looks really great. Nice find!
graystevens
Interesting question, and one I've been debating with myself for a bit too - I have a launch page setup for my new side project, currently in development but put a page up to gather interest.

Would folks expect a some terms or a privacy policy to be applied to this? All it is collecting is an email for notification of launch, and this is hosted by MailChimp. I suspect a ToS is overkill, but a privacy policy may be sensible for folks?

mromnia
Technically, you're required by law to have a privacy policy, at least in most places. If you're collecting emails I'd say you should have one.

I was mostly curious what people do with their free sideprojects being a single github.io page with possibly Google Analytics or something. You are still technically breaching the GA ToS by not having one, but it seems a bit of a hassle.

jakehilborn
Yes. I created a free app involving speeding in your car so ToS absolving me of responsibility for misuse was necessary. I also included a privacy policy about analytics data collected. I worded it in plain terms myself without involving a lawyer.

https://jakehilborn.github.io/speedr/

smt88
Do you think your app encourages or discourages people to speed?
jakehilborn
It's meant to be informational. I left out achievements, leaderboards, and flashy lights/noises so that I wouldn't encourage speeding. You'll find that for almost all driving scenarios that you save very insignificant amounts of time by speeding. Furthermore, based on my low daily active user count I'd conclude that Speedr isn't making speeding all that fun.
FatAmericanDev
Speeding is not about saving time. It's about excitement and adrenaline...
smt88
That might be how you feel, but I have many often-late friends who speed only to save time.
dsacco
I like your app. That said, the landing page's example of 10 minutes saved on a <120 minute drive (~11%) by going only 7mph faster sort of undermines the point that you don't save much time by speeding, especially if that 7mph faster barely brings you above 70mph in absolute terms.

I can agree with the observation that speeding only saves you insignificant amounts of time if your total commute time or absolute speed are rather low. But once you're driving anywhere for an hour or more and at speeds above, say, 60mph or so, it appears to be more up to interpretation about what "significant" means.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if people who are already inclined to speed were encouraged to do even more by your app, though I suspect there'd be a sampling bias in that those people might not download it in the first place.

skdotdan
Off-topic: this was exactly an idea I had for a side project (a ToS/Cookie pop-ups generator), but there are already some services providing it.
madamelic
I actually made them for my side project last night.

I just googled around and found a ToS / Privacy Policy generator but they wanted like $60 for each. They publish a template so I took the mostly completed template, added a few details (emails are saved, analytics are collected, I'm not selling or distributing your info, email me if you want your account deleted, etc)

mromnia
Could you link the generator here? Perhaps it'll help someone (perhaps even me!).
madamelic
https://termsfeed.com/

It seems to gate the more generic options (to obviously get money).

It does work though. I can't really speak to how well their documents hold up though legally.

tmaly
I have one as there is a CA law that requires it.

I am not sure how I found it, but I got mine from termsfeed.com they were even nice enough to modify it for me when I realized I did not check the correct boxes.