Whenever we develop content for a client's website two of the absolute must-haves we recommend are a privacy statement and terms of use.

While we're not legal-types, we have a couple of pro formas we give to clients to get them started (on the understanding that they should get these checked by their legal eagles of course!).

While I know this sounds litigious and some smaller companies may argue the don't really need them, we've just experienced a perfect example of why some form of disclaimer or statement about the use of a website is required. It has also made us thankful we make this recommendation to clients.

Here's the scenario:

• We built a website for a (small) client, we don't manage the ongoing content.
  
  
• At the time the site was built, a number of third-party events were put on the site, as an industry service. Dates, descriptions and links to the event organiser's sites were included.
  
  
• We provided a pro forma terms of use to the client to include on their site. They did.
  
  
• Because we'd done such a darn fine job of optimising the site for search when we originally built it, the site was ranking higher for a particular event than the event organiser's own website was. The event's a pretty major one in the clients industry.
  
  
• Unfortunately, unbeknownst to our client, the dates of the event were changed. The event organiser informed our client a couple of weeks before the event. They only informed our client because the search results people were seeing were confusing them - our clients site was ranking so well.
  
  
• Our client changed the dates of the event on the website as soon as they could and wrote a large note on the event page to help clarify.
  
  
• The search engine continued to show the old dates in the search results.
  
  
• More complaints followed from the event organiser that the site was causing confusion.
  
  
• We suggested to our client they delete the page all together. They did.
  
  
• The search engine continued to show the old dates in the search results! However, now that the page didn't exist, the link in the results went to a blank page with no dates and no information.
  
  
• Some unfortunate event goers continued to rely on the information being displayed on the search results - which had our clients site (with the incorrect dates from a non-existent page) showing above the event organisers website.
  
  
• They booked their travel arrangements based on what they saw in the search results.
  
  
• They arrived at the event a week early after shelling out a fair few hundred dollars worth of travel expenses.
  
  
• They sought compensation from the event organiser which pushed the issue on to our client.

While our client felt that what had happened was unfortunate and did sympathise with the event goer, they had made their best effort to correct the information. They couldn't really help what transpired, especially because the search engine involved is god of search engines. 

The terms we gave our client (and that they use on their site) are pretty clear about information from third-party sources: 

"...This site may contain links to third party sites or information from third party sites. [Client] is not responsible for the condition or the content of those sites or the content on this site from such third party sites."

and

"...You should make your own enquiries before making decisions concerning your interests..."

So, while it may feel litigious to include terms of use and such other statements, it certainly is important for any website, no matter how large or small.