Internet Business Lawyer Mike Young

Aug 12

Free Legal Resources For Texas Gym And Martial Arts Studio Owners

By Mike Young, Esq. | Business Contracts, Business Lawyer | No Comments

texas gym legal information - free resources Here are some complimentary legal resources for Texas gym owners and owners of Texas martial arts studios.

Biometrics

COVID-19 Coronavirus Orders

How Do You Comply With Texas Gym Coronavirus Orders?

Health Spa Act

Membership Contracts

Voyeurism

Voyeurism Law: Protecting Your Business From Voyeur Videos and Photos

Waivers of Liability

Workers

If you own a Texas gym or martial arts studio, click here to learn how we can help you.

Aug 11

When Should You Pay Affiliates Commissions?

By Mike Young, Esq. | Internet Lawyer, Website Lawyer, Website Legal Documents | No Comments

pay affiliates commissions If you have an affiliate program for your products and/or services, when should you pay affiliates after a commission has been earned?

It depends on your risk comfort level and the quality of your affiliates.

Affiliate Fraud

Unfortunately, affiliate fraud is a common issue. If you haven’t prescreened affiliate applicants before approving them to join your program, chances are you’re going to have multiple con artists gaming the system to increase their payouts by screwing you over and cheating other affiliates.

Refund Periods Affect When You Pay Affiliates Commissions

So, how do you protect yourself and the integrity of your program?

As a general rule, it makes sense to wait to pay out commissions until after the refund period expires.

Credit Card Fraud And Affiliate Commissions

Even then, you may want to wait longer (e.g. 30 days) beyond the refund period expiration to reduce the chance you get cheated by a credit card fraud scheme.

For example, a con artist affiliate might buy stolen credit card information off the Dark Web and use it to make a bunch of bogus purchases to “earn” affiliate commissions. It might take a while for the victims to realize their credit card info has been stolen and contact their card issuers to request the charges be reversed as fraudulent.

Suddenly you’re getting hit with chargebacks by Visa, MasterCard, etc. after the affiliate has been paid and disappeared. So, you’ve lost the money on the sales plus the affiliate commissions. And you’ll be getting angry emails and phone calls from the victims who believe you’re the one who cheated them (instead of the con artist affiliate).

Where To Get Help

An experienced Internet business lawyer can craft an affiliate program agreement that’s designed to protect you and reduce your risks when you pay affiliates commissions. The attorney can also prepare the right privacy policy, terms of use, and other website legal documents you need to minimize the legal dangers of selling products and services online.

Aug 03

3 Signs Your Website Privacy Policy Needs To Be Updated

By Mike Young, Esq. | Internet Lawyer, Website Lawyer, Website Legal Documents | No Comments

website privacy policy updates To protect themselves from lawsuits and government investigations, many business owners have their websites reviewed for legal compliance issues at least once a year by an experienced Internet lawyer. These reviews often result in privacy policy updates to reflect new laws and regulations.

Here are three signs your website’s privacy policy is stale, i.e. it’s not providing you the website legal protection you need.

1. European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

If your privacy policy doesn’t address the EU’s GDPR, the policy is probably very outdated. Because the GDPR went into effect back in May 2018. The regulation needs to be addressed if your site has visitors from EU countries…whether or not you do business in the European Union.

2. California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

California’s new privacy law went into effect on January 1, 2020 and started to be enforced on July 1, 2020. If you have California visitors to your website — regardless of where your business is located — you’ll want to make sure your site’s privacy policy either shows how you comply with the CCPA or explains why the CCPA doesn’t apply to your business.

3. Brazil’s General Data Protection Law (LGDP)

Following in the footsteps of the European Union, the Brazilian Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados Pessoais went into effect in August 2020. If you have website visitors from Brazil, your privacy policy should either address how you’ll comply with the LGDP or why the LGDP doesn’t apply to your business.

IP Blocking Instead of Privacy Policy Updates?

Don’t be tempted to try to circumvent these privacy laws simply by banning visitors from the European Union, California, or Brazil. Even blocking IP addresses won’t prevent someone from accessing your site using a Virtual Private Network (VPN). It’s easier to make privacy policy updates that protect you than to try to evade these laws by blocking Web traffic.

What to Do…

If you need help with privacy policy updates or other website legal documents, the first step is to book a phone consultation with Internet Lawyer Mike Young.

Jul 27

Flat Fee Contract Drafting And Revisions

By Mike Young, Esq. | Business Contracts, Business Lawyer | No Comments

Over half of Business Lawyer Mike Young’s practice involves flat fee contract drafting or revisions for clients. Why a flat fee instead of charging by the hour? Because it makes sense for the client to know ahead of time the amount they’re investing in legal protection so there are no surprises.

Phone Consultation

During the initial phone consultation, Attorney Young and the client discuss the agreement(s) to be prepared or revised. After the consult, the client will receive a firm quote for either drafting the new contracts or revising existing ones.

In some cases, it’s more cost-effective to have a new agreement prepared than to revise an existing contract that has major flaws in it. Because it takes time to identify and fix problems in an existing agreement, particularly those that have been “borrowed” from another source by the client.

What if additional work needs to be done? Flat fee quotes for contract drafting include one set of complimentary revisions within 10 days of the client receiving the agreement from Attorney Young.

Hourly Billing As An Alternative

What about hourly rates?

Attorney Young will prepare or revise agreements at an hourly rate. However, most clients prefer to pay a flat fee instead.

When hourly rates are charged, it’s typically when the amount of time involved is clearly an unknown. For example, when a client wants Attorney Young to negotiate the contract’s terms with the other party’s lawyer there’s no way to know how time-consuming that will be. So, the standard hourly rate is charged and billed in 1/10th hour increments.

How To Get Started

If you need help with an agreement, your first step is booking a phone consultation with Attorney Young.

Jul 23

Should You Buy An Online Business’ Equity?

By Mike Young, Esq. | Internet Lawyer | No Comments

Should You Buy An Online Business’ Equity When you’ve decided to purchase an existing e-commerce business, should you purchase the company’s equity (corporate shares, member equity interests, etc.)? As a general rule, it rarely makes sense to buy an online business’ equity when you’re acquiring it. Most deals are asset purchases instead of buying equity.

Here’s why…

First, with the transfer of equity, you also get the company’s existing and potential liabilities. Even with due diligence prior to closing, you can still end up having bought a pig in a poke…lawsuits, tax judgments, etc.

Second, a seller will often want to retain their entity and some assets unrelated to the sale of the business you’re purchasing. For example, the seller may have an e-commerce venture that’s in a different niche but owned by the same entity…and that won’t be part of your deal. In fact, smart sellers often hide their unrelated online ventures so that buyers don’t even know about them.

Of course, there are rare exceptions to the general rule. For example, if the primary asset of the online venture is the seller’s email lists, it may make sense to buy the entity’s equity instead of the lists themselves. Why? Because email subscribers opted-in to receive messages from one entity…they didn’t give a second entity permission to email them.

Even if an email autoresponder service lets an asset purchaser assume control of the seller’s email lists, chances are the buyer’s sending of emails to the lists violates federal and/or state laws because there was no consent by the recipients. What was perfectly legal for the seller to send becomes unsolicited commercial email (spam) when sent by the buyer.

These are just a few of the issues you’ll want to discuss with your Internet business lawyer as you explore the best way to acquire an e-commerce business. Just don’t assume that you can buy an online business’ equity without there being some significant legal risks that should be minimized as part of structuring the deal.

Business & Technology Law Blog