Terms of Service.

A Terms of Service agreement (also commonly known as a Terms of Service or Terms of Use agreement) is a legal document that lays out the rules and guidelines of an app or website.

These rules are created and enforced by the company behind the website or app, and users must agree to them before using the site or app, when creating an account, making a purchase or subscribing to a service. By agreeing to these terms, your users are essentially entering into a contract with you and agreeing to act according to your policies.

While the average user probably doesn't spend much time reading Terms of Service pages, they serve an important purpose.

Terms of Service are not required by law like Privacy Policies are, but you'll still want to have one for your own benefit and for your customers. The reason virtually all large websites have a Terms of Service page is not because they have to, but because it's the smart thing to do.

How to Create a Terms of Service Agreement

A good way to get started creating a Terms of Service agreement for your app or website is to look at the agreements for similar apps and websites. For example, if you want to create a Terms of Service page for your ecommerce website, take a look at other ecommerce websites such as Amazon and see what information it includes in its Terms of Service.

Let's take a look at some of the standard information included in a Terms of Service.

Who Can Use Your App or Website

This simple but important piece of information should be one of the first statements in your Terms of Service agreement. While many apps and websites are suitable for anyone and everyone, the ones that are not are usually that way for a very good reason.

Common reasons to limit who can use your services are age restrictions and limiting access to certain geographical areas.

Age restrictions are common where adult supervision is desired such as when making purchases or interacting with other users. Age restriction is also important to keep minors from accessing adult content.

Geographic restrictions can exist when a product or service is only intended for users within a certain country, for example.

Another common reason for geographic restrictions within a Terms of Service agreement is for legal reasons. For example, if a certain website is intended only for users within the United States, the Terms of Service may limit who can use the service to only residents of the US. One reason for this could be that the website is not compliant with the GDPR, so users in the EU are restricted from using the service.

Here's an example of a very short and to the point clause from Ethicon that makes it clear that the website is only intended for U.S. residents who are 18 or older:

Here's an example of a more complex and detailed clause from DigitalOcean that outlines age restrictions and notes that the service can't be used to benefit third parties.

Restricted Use

Every Terms & Conditions page should include a section on restricted use. Essentially, this section would cover forbidden user actions that go against the intent of the app or website.

For example, in Spotify's Terms & Conditions users are forbidden from making illegal copies or recordings of music, circumventing regional licensing restrictions, or sharing accounts with other users.

Restricting user activity in your Terms & Conditions protects and indemnifies you from unlawful or undesirable use of your app or website.

Your restrictions can be as company-specific as Spotify's, and can also include general restrictions like no spamming, no harassing other users and no using profanity.