Internet & eCommerce
Your site is open. So is your potential exposure.
An online business is regulated like a storefront, even when the whole operation lives on a website, and the rules that govern it come from a stack of federal statutes, state laws, and platform policies that most owners never read until a problem arrives. Hank has counseled online companies on the agreements, disclosures, and compliance issues that keep a digital business running, from the terms a customer clicks to the platform deals that carry the revenue.
Your terms of service and privacy policy are the contract between you and every visitor, and they only bind a user who had reasonable notice and a chance to agree. Hank structures sign-up and checkout so acceptance is recorded, drafts the terms that set payment, returns, disclaimers, and how disputes get resolved, and writes the privacy policy that discloses what you collect and honors the choices state law now requires you to offer. A policy copied from another site describes a business you don't run and leaves the holes a plaintiff's lawyer looks for first.
Beyond the contracts, an online business answers to a body of rules built for the medium. Section 230 and the DMCA safe harbor protect a site that hosts user content, but only when you follow the notice-and-takedown steps; CAN-SPAM governs your marketing email; COPPA restricts collecting data from children under 13; and the FTC polices the disclosures behind your advertising, endorsements, and auto-renewing subscriptions. Hank maps which of these reach your business and builds the policies and processes that keep you on the right side of them before a regulator or a class action raises the question.
Hank has advised eCommerce sellers, software and SaaS companies, content platforms, and marketers on the legal side of operating online, often as the outside counsel they call when a takedown, a chargeback dispute, or a compliance question arrives. Every engagement works toward the same result, an online business documented well enough to scale, defend, and sell.
Services Include
- Website terms and conditions
- Privacy policies
- eCommerce agreements
- Online contracting
- Sweepstakes and contests
- Domain name issues
- Social media and content usage
- CAN-SPAM and COPPA-adjacent issues
Internet & eCommerce Insights
Website Terms of Service: How to Draft Terms That Bind Your Users and What Happens When They Don't
A website's terms of service are a contract between the business and every person who uses the site. If the terms are enforceable, they govern the relationship: where disputes are resolved, what the business's liability is, whether claims go to arbitration or court, what intellectual property rights attach to user content, and what happens when the relationship ends.
Read articleSaaS Agreements: What Belongs in the Subscription Contract Your Customers Click Through
A SaaS agreement governs access to software delivered over the Internet rather than installed on the customer's hardware. Unlike a traditional software license (where the customer receives a copy of the code and runs it locally), a SaaS relationship means the provider controls the infrastructure, the customer's data lives on the provider's servers, and the service can be modified, interrupted, or terminated by the provider at any time unless the contract provides otherwise.
Read articleCAN-SPAM Compliance for Online Businesses: What the Law Requires for Every Marketing Email You Send
Every commercial email sent in the United States is governed by the CAN-SPAM Act (15 U.S.C. §§ 7701-7713), regardless of whether the recipient opted in, whether the email was sent by the business or by a third party on the business's behalf, and whether the recipient is a consumer or a business contact.
Read articleFTC Endorsement Guides and Influencer Disclosure: What Online Businesses Must Disclose About Paid Relationships
If someone has a relationship with a brand and publicly recommends that brand's product, the relationship must be disclosed to the audience. That's the core principle of the FTC's Endorsement Guides (16 CFR Part 255), and it applies to every business that pays for endorsements, sponsors content, provides free products for review, or engages influencers, affiliates, or brand ambassadors in any capacity.
Read articleAuto-Renewal and Subscription Compliance: The Rules That Govern Recurring Charges Before Customers Click Subscribe
If your business charges customers on a recurring basis, federal and state regulators treat the sign-up flow, the renewal process, and the cancellation mechanism as compliance events. Every subscription enrollment that doesn't meet disclosure and consent requirements is a potential enforcement action.
Read articleSection 230 and Content Moderation: What Protects Your Platform When Users Post and When Protection Ends
If your online business allows users to post content, whether that's product reviews, comments, forum discussions, marketplace listings, or social media posts, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. § 230) is the statute that determines whether you're liable for what they say.
Read articleRelated Work
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