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Does Your Blog Need a Disclaimer?

Does Your Blog Need a Disclaimer?

Many of you have heard of disclosures, legal statements that disclose the fact that you are blogging to make money, and being paid to blog. What about disclaimers? Should you have a blog disclaimer? Does it need one?

A disclaimer is a statement that basically holds you, and all who blog on your blog, harmless from prosecution. Disclaimers can be placed in the footer or sidebar, if short, or on a Page with the link in your footer or sidebar, or even at the bottom of your blog posts or comments form.

Here are some examples.

Examples of Blog Disclaimers

There are many forms of types of blog disclaimers and each of them represents a different legal purpose. Just as new laws are still being established regarding online transactions since the internet is a relatively new aspect of our society, so will there be constantly changing blog disclaimers or some new ones getting added every now and then.

blog disclaimer

For the most common examples, however, our post from last regarding examples of blog disclaimers should give you a good idea of what a blog disclaimer entails. Here’s a quoted example from the link; it’s about information on legal advice and how the readers should treat it:

This Blog/Web Site is made available by the lawyer or law firm publisher for educational purposes only as well as to give you general information and a general understanding of the law, not to provide specific legal advice. By using this blog site you understand that there is no attorney client relationship between you and the Blog/Web Site publisher. The Blog/Web Site should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a licensed professional attorney in your state.

The Fun and Amusing Blog Disclaimer

Matt Cutts disclaimer, you would think, would be fairly serious, with a little humor, and outline his responsibility, or not, as an employee of Google. It is all of those things:

This is my personal blog. The views expressed on these pages are mine alone and not those of my employer.

Q: Heh. Did you get a talking to?
A: No, I haven’t. Hopefully I never will.
Q: Why are you doing this now?
A: Just in case. If I say something stupid in the future, it’s better to be able to point out that the stupidity is mine, and mine alone. My stupidity! You can’t have it!

This old goodie has generated 106 comments on his disclaimer. Which begs the question, should your disclaimer be open to comments? Normally it isn’t, but in true Matt Cutts style, his is open to comment and discussion.

Scott Dockendorf has a very simple but fun disclaimer. He also sprinkles a little sense of humor to the disclaimer. It covers his comments policy.

The information in this weblog is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights.

This weblog does not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my employer. It is solely my opinion.

Feel free to challenge me, disagree with me, or tell me I’m completely nuts in the comments section of each blog entry, but I reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason whatsoever (abusive, profane, rude, or anonymous comments) – so keep it polite, please.

Sadly (but understandably), most bloggers don’t make them like this anymore. Certain laws regarding libel, cyberbullying, and cyber crimes have been made to ensure the decency and responsibility in online anonymity. While “fun disclaimers” add personality to your blog, they can also invite misunderstandings, loopholes, and abuse especially when worded poorly.

blog disclaimer

They do work well in maintaining a clean and friendly comment section but should never be considered a stand-in for a site-wide disclaimer.

This brings us to a more refined and purposeful kind of disclaimer: the legal ones. They may be boring, but they get the job done and can help a blogger out in a pickle in the event that lawsuits get thrown around like hot potatoes.

The Legal Disclaimer

Usually, “legal” disclaimers, are those written by lawyers or for legal policy style blogs such as the one you can find in the US’ Small Business Administration disclaimer:

You are accessing a U.S. government information system, which includes:
-This computer
-This computer network
-All computers connected to this network
-All devices and storage media attached to this network or to a computer on this network 
This information system is provided for U.S. Government-authorized use only. Unauthorized or improper use of this system may result in civil and criminal penalties.

While not filled much with legalese, it’s simple deniability of responsibility for blog content and comments is nice. It’s easy to read and does the job.

The Intellectual Property Law Blog has all the legalese that would be appropriate with such a titled blog:

These Terms and Conditions of Use apply to you when you view, access or otherwise use the blog located at www.intellectualpropertylawblog.com (the “blog”). The blog is owned by Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP (“Sheppard Mullin”). We grant you a nonexclusive, nontransferable, limited right to access, use and display the blog and the materials provided hereon, provided that you comply fully with these Terms and Conditions of Use.

It goes on to define no attorney-client relationships covering legal advice, privacy issues, copyright notice and limitations, commercial use of the content, service marks (trademarks and logos), links, prohibited actions (what you can and cannot do on the blog or with the blog’s content), email and other correspondence to and from the blog, limitation of damages…it covers all of the legal terms and policies, combining a comments policy, copyright policy, content policy, privacy policy, and more into their disclaimer.

At the bottom of the disclaimer page, and on the posts, is a footer that further covers “Attorney Advertising” policies, which reinforce the issue of legal advice within the blog doesn’t constitute a relationship between the user and the attorney. This is serious coverage.

blog disclaimer

Just One Way Ticket is a travel blog which, while less formal, also covers content, comments, copyright, names and logos, images, and more, combining all policies into a disclaimer. Some interesting sections covered content, compensation for damages incurred for following the blogger’s advice, and a disclosure on the “commercial interest” of the blog:

See Also
Google Search Report Tool

The content used in this website are intellectual properties of www.JustOneWayTicket.com (a.k.a. Sabrina Iovino) unless otherwise stated. Unless otherwise noted, Sabrina Iovino is the legal copyright holder of the material on this website and it may not be used, reprinted, or published without my permission. 
 
The majority of the images on this blog are taken by me. Additional, I also purchase stock images from Depositphotos.com. Occasionally, I also use copyright free images from Pixabay.com, Unsplash.com and Pexels.com.
 
If you would like to use any of the photos or text found in www.JustOneWayTicket.com, please contact me before with your intent and purpose. Obviously, please do not use any content without permission.

Meanwhile, in the very same disclaimer for the travel blog in question, the owner(s) give a tidbit of information regarding some income-generating tools and methods such as for affiliate links. It gives a certain amount of transparency to the visitors and the audience of the site which makes for a better relationship between the users and the owners.

Some of the links on JustOneWayTicket.com are affiliate links. At no additional cost to you, I will earn a small percentage of the sale if you make a purchase. I appreciate your support a lot, this helps to keep my website running. If you have questions about a product, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

All About Rules & Honesty

When all has been said and done, a disclaimer should typically be about how honest you want to be with your audience. You set your rules and preferences and do your best not to break them yourself. Some of these rules may be harsh or even antagonistic like a certain example from a blog called Whatever from John Scalzi:

Everything on the site is my opinion (except comments written by others, which are their opinions). I have strong opinions. At times, you may not agree with these opinions, or how I choose to express them. This is not my problem.

I make no claims as toward being even-handed, fair, or nice. I write what I want here. Your being offended is not a reason for me to stop writing as I choose.

I run this site as I please. You do not get a vote. If you try to suggest that you do, I may be rude to you.

See? Honesty. So you know what you’re getting into, to say the least. You can check out the rest of the blog to gauge whether it’s satirical or not. Meanwhile, you can still combine legalese with a cute personality when it comes to disclaimer like what My Happy Crazy Life did:

I don’t know where it came from, but the other day the thought popped into my head: I don’t have a disclaimer on my blog. Since one of my mottos is “better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it” I decided it was about time to get one.

I started my research with my friend, Google, which turned up a ton of resources to beg, borrow and steal from. As clever and humorous as some of the disclaimers are, I prefer to come up with my own material so I sat myself down with an extra-large caramel cappuccino, sugar-free with skim milk of course, and wrote my own. I’m not a lawyer and certainly don’t play one on TV so there are probably some points I’ve forgotten. If there are, I’m not responsible for them. I don’t take responsibility for much more than getting myself dressed in the morning.

The rest of that disclaimer talks about what the author is or isn’t responsible for. It’s a pretty good balance between the formal and the creative.

Now, if these less formal blogs managed to have their own disclaimers, then having your own should be no problem at all. To that end, you do need your own blog disclaimer whether it’s for legal purposes or to add more flavor to your website. At least now, you have a better idea of how to make your own.

Related Post: Blogging for Dummies in 2019: The Only Cheat Sheet You Need

View Comments (25)
  • Thanks for noticing my disclaimer– it was meant to have serious intent but with a lighthearted tone, and since I am a poet at heart…

    At any rate, disclaimers are so much about what a site *is not*… I am also working on a companion Manifesto regarding what my blog *is*, both of which will be linked to every entry.

  • thanks for the disclaimer list. I am writing a disclaimer at the moment for my new blog and hopefully I can cover important matters because right now in my country a fellow blogger has been charge for sedition (politically motivated) not because of what he has written but because of the comments posted by the visitors. It sucks so I better be prepared.

  • Thanks so much for this. I felt that I needed a disclaimer for my opinion blog and was inspired and able to start customizing my own disclaimer.

  • Hi,

    I am starting a blog which would act like a sharepoint to various interesting articles that I find. I am not much into expressing my own views as yet but would like start form sort of a respository for articles that I like.I would always provide the links to the original posts and would like to give the authors full credit of their work.
    Could someone suggest a suitable disclaimer.

    Regards
    P

  • Thnx for wonderful and informative post….really helped me a lot to start preparing my disclaimer

  • Very useful content.
    Lots of people have started visiting on my blog. It is good. I thought it is good to have a disclaimer also.
    I am preparing for my blog.

  • Yup it is necessary to have disclaimer at site, if you want to avoid any legal issues. As a blogger we always try our best to give right sort of information to user, but sometimes companies, people and business organization not feel comfortable with our facts. Therefore, it is always better to let them know that, it is my personal collection and whatever modifications are made depend upon my understanding.

    At least you have a piece of disclaimer to avoid any issue. Nice article though.

  • Thank you for putting together this article. As I am using sponsored posts on my site now, this information was incredibly valuable to me.

  • Please beware that even if you have a disclaimer you can still be sued for using copyrighted content on your blog or website. It does not matter if you didn’t know if it was copyrighted or if you have a detailed disclaimer on your site. It doesn’t even matter if you link the image back to the source that you found it!

  • it is very neccessary to have all the important pages on your site like about us, contact us, privacy policy and disclaimer. i have setup all the pages except disclaimer because i had no idea about it but finally this post really help me to make one for my site.

    Thanks for sharing with us !

  • Good post. I always use a disclaimer and terms of service and a contact! Don’t you love when you see websites that don’t even have an email you can contact them to? :)

  • Well having a Disclaimer will not cost you anything (you can even use online tools to easily generate one) and it’s not always about “being protected” in case something happens to your visitors but sometimes it servers as a way to help them know how to treat your website.

    For example even though we don’t really need one at Crossword365, we still wrote a simple one just trying to explain them the use of external links or using our database content to solve their crosswords (even though there’s no harm coming from that).

    Also, great article Lorelle.
    Thanks

  • Loved this guide! I used it as an inspiration on how to structure my own disclaimer. Now I have a draft up on my blog, and although it needs editing I have started! Thanks a lot! :)

  • This is such an enlightening and important article to the point that I had no idea that besides Disclosure + Terms & Condition + Privacy Policy + Cookie Policy that I also needed a Disclaimer.

    Thanks Lorelle for helping us to stay more protected.

    Best Regards
    Paris

  • This is really a nice topic and I never thought about this question. Although as an affiliate marketer I know that I need to put a disclaimer page on my website. But I really enjoyed reading this topic. Thank you very much.

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