Having a blog for your business is one of the easiest and most effective methods to communicate with your customers. It’s an outlet where you can publish your thoughts, news and updates from your business to a large audience for little to no outlay.
Content is king when it comes to promoting your small business on the internet and blogging is one of the best ways to generate useful content that will appeal to your customers. It doesn’t matter whether you own a small retail store, are a photographer, or in professional services, your customers are always looking for information online and a blog will help to get your business noticed.
One thing you’ll notice though when visiting the different blogs of businesses is that some choose to include a disclaimer, while others don’t. This leads to the simple question, is it necessary to include a disclaimer on your blog?
For those blogs that do include a disclaimer, its contents vary wildly, from a simple few lines stating that the opinion expressed is that of the business alone, not the company whose products they stock, to a page of heavy text detailing different sections of legislation.
From a legal perspective there’s no simple yes or no answer as to whether it is necessary to include one. The best advice simple is that it’s better to display a disclaimer on your blog, though not legally necessary.
Often disclaimers we see are put there in an attempt to deny responsibility for misconduct, such as copyright infringement, defamation, trade mark infringement and deceptive trade practices. Disclaimers that attempt to do this do not provide legal protection for engaging in these practices and avoid liability; as such practices cannot be ‘contracted out of’.
The key advantage of having a disclaimer on your blog is that where you do face liability for one of the above infringements, then your disclaimer can be used as an explanation for your actions in your defence. It will not be a full defence or get out of jail free card, but can provide limited protection to your misconduct.
If you choose to include a disclaimer on your blog, it is preferable that it be displayed in a prominent location and not hidden away somewhere. It will not be given as much weight in a situation where you rely upon it if it is hidden in hard to read text as a footer menu for instance.
While we can’t provide a definitive answer as to whether or not to include a disclaimer, the fact that they can be easily written and included is an excuse enough to include one on your blog.