[Music]  Hi welcome to FDC education vlog my name  is Damon Wright, I'm the head of the  advertising an e-commerce practice group  at the law firm of Gordon Ries. You want  to build a company that's gonna be  around for a long time that you also can  enjoy. You can enjoy your success, you can  sleep better at night, your employees can  feel better because they know their jobs  are secure. So to that end it's important  to protect yourself from forces that can  be disruptive to your business so I want  to talk about some simple, easy things  you can do to accomplish that. First let  me talk about the Federal Trade  Commission and how to prevent getting in  trouble with the Federal Trade  Commission. The FTC is enforcing a law  very aggressively called rasca, ROSC, a it applies to businesses that sell products  and services on a subscription billing  model so it could be subscription boxes,  it could be flowers, it could be health  and beauty dietary supplements, informational products. The FTC goes  after companies that violate rasca with  a vengeance. They will have receivers, appointed temporary restraining orders  entered freeze assets it's not much fun. It's much more fun as a lawyer to help  companies avoid all that in the first  place and it's really easy to do. rasca  requires three things. So imagine your  checkout page first thing is on the  checkout page you need to have clear and  conspicuous disclosure of the billing  terms and cancellation terms. How much  are people going to pay each month? And  then the second is you need to make sure  the consumer is agreeing to those terms, they've elected to subscribe as opposed  to buying the astrayed sale. So if you're  selling a product via straight sale or  there's a subscribe and save option the  consumer can check one box where they  can check another box  they've thereby agreed that they want to  subscribe. And the third thing Russell  requires that there be is that there'd  be an easy way to cancel. That people can  send an email to cancel or they can call  a toll-free number. If they're calling in, they don't have to wait I'll hold for a  long time. So if you comply with rosca if  you don't have deceptive advertising  like fake testimonials and of course if  you keep consumer complaints low it's  very likely you'll never hear from the  FTC. Let me talk about another force that  could really be bad for your business  and that is consumer class-action  lawyers  and serial plaintiffs. There are  folks that spend their waking hours  surfing the internet trying to find  companies that are selling products that  don't have some magic language on their  site because those are companies that  are really vulnerable. You don't wanna be  one of those. The magic language really  easy again on your checkout page I agree  to terms of sale hyperlink and the terms  of sale of course are a contract by  checking the box the consumers agreeing  to the contract and in that contract in  the terms of sale two key provisions  class action waiver language and  mandatory arbitration language. This  means that the consumers are knowing that  if they want to see you they can't do it  in court, they can't bring a class  action it has to be a single claimant  arbitration. If you had this on your  website it's very likely that you will  never face a class action or if you do  you'll quickly be able to get the case  kicked in favor of a single person  arbitration. In five minutes of fixing  this site here your site to add this you  can literally have saved yourself  millions of dollars so I can't emphasize  enough how important that is. Last thing  that could be really disruptive to your  business is when you have a dispute with  another business. Maybe it's a service  provider or maybe either some type of  revenue sharing agreement you have. You  need to have clarity in your contracts . You know Pennywise pound-foolish made  sense 200 years ago it's still true  today  make sure your contracts are tight and  make sure you're protected  focus on these types of provisions  representations and warranties. You want  the other side to make representations  and warranties to you, for instance they  will comply with advertising law and  other applicable law limitations of  liability you want to make sure that  your liability is limited the other side  not so much you want to be able to get  full relief from them if you have to sue  them and then indemnity patient if they  do something that causes you harm you  get sued because of social media that  you have the ability to go to them and  say you have to pay my damages again. Having a sharp clear contract will  prevent confusion disruption and  disputes down the road and you know  actually save you a lot of money in  attorneys fees so with that you'll be on  your way to having a stronger brand, becoming more valuable, having a place  that your company's employees again feel  secure working that and again enjoying  your success and sleeping better at  night. It's a pleasure to talk with you  Thank you very much take  [Music]  you