Ask HN: How do I protect myself when providing freemium SaaS product?

7 points by Everlag 12y ago ↗ HN

I've been developing a service that applies version control ideas to a fairly conservative field and would appreciate tips on ensuring I protect myself, legally, from possible issues that may be created when I open it to the public.

As a Canadian university student who's been on HN for awhile, I have a vague idea of what I should do- terms and conditions, separation of financials, and copyright notices- but have no comprehensive, or coherent, solution regarding how to avoid legal trouble which is expensive, time consuming, and generally unpleasant.

Thanks for any tips or guides you may have.

5 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 25.2 ms ] thread

guynirpaz 12y ago ↗

Every saas website has terms of service. Take a look at few of them and see the basics that you need to consider

tectonic 12y ago ↗

You may want to incorporate for liability protection, but I'm not a lawyer, especially not a Canadian one. In the US (CA), when I was doing a lot of public side projects, I formed an LLC with a separate tax identification number and bank account to help reduce liability.

wikwocket 12y ago ↗

Ultimately the best advice is to talk to an accountant and a lawyer, as this varies by location and industry. You can find one of each who will give you a free 1-hour consultation. If you like them, you can hire them hourly to customize a boilerplate T&C and to incorporate you in whichever way is most advantageous.

A more HN-style recommendation is to not provide a freemium B2C product, but to provide a paid B2B product. That is, do not invite general users to abuse your system for free, but rather encourage serious businesses to pay for your service. This will attract more lucrative, less problematic customers. If you have questions on how to do this given your product, post a Show/Ask HN about it. :)

palidanx 12y ago ↗

My start-up currently uses the method of a paid b2b wall right up front. To help people trust the product more, the website has a guest account which allows users to test drive the system without committing.

jsherer 12y ago ↗

Automattic (the company behind Wordpress.com) open sourced[1] their legal documents with a Creative Commons license. It includes their Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You can use these to get your moving in the right direction, but be sure to consult with your lawyer.

[1]: https://github.com/Automattic/legalmattic