Resources
Guides and resources about terms of service analysis, consumer protection, and privacy policy grading.
Terms of service review checklist for mobile apps teams
If you're building or managing a mobile app, you know that terms of service aren't just legal theater, they're the contract between you and your users. Whether you're shipping a fitness tracker, a social network, or a productivity tool, your terms set expectations about data, billing, liability, and user rights. But reviewing and writing solid terms is hard, especially under shipping pressure. This guide gives mobile teams a practical checklist to audit their own terms, spot red flags before lau
Privacy policy review checklist for mobile apps teams
Your mobile app collects data. Maybe it's location, contacts, photos, or just email addresses for login. Your privacy policy is the legal document that tells users exactly what happens to that data, and where your team is legally exposed if something goes wrong.
Acceptable use policy review checklist for marketplaces teams
Marketplaces connect sellers, buyers, and service providers, but that ecosystem only works if everyone plays by the same rules. An Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) sets those boundaries. It tells users what they can and cannot do on your platform, protects your business from misuse, and keeps the community safe.
Refund policy review checklist for marketplaces teams
A clear, fair refund policy is the backbone of trust in any marketplace. Whether you operate a SaaS platform, freelancer network, digital marketplace, or vendor listing site, your refund policy directly influences buyer confidence, legal compliance, and long-term retention. Yet many marketplace teams rush through policy drafting, copy competitor language without adaptation, or leave loopholes that create disputes later.
Cookie policy review checklist for marketplaces teams
If you run a marketplace or multi-vendor platform, you already know that cookies are everywhere, tracking visitors, personalizing ads, measuring performance, and sometimes collecting data you didn't realize you were collecting. Your cookie policy is the legal document that tells users exactly what's happening with their data, and getting it wrong can trigger fines from regulators like the FTC, GDPR authorities, or your home country's data protection office. This checklist walks you through revie
Terms of service review checklist for marketplaces teams
If you run an online marketplace, whether it's a freelance platform, reseller network, or peer-to-peer service, your terms of service are the legal backbone holding everything together. They protect your platform, set expectations for buyers and sellers, and outline what happens when disputes arise. But drafting and reviewing marketplace terms is complicated. Miss a clause, and you expose your business to liability. Include the wrong language, and you push away honest users or invite regulatory
Privacy policy review checklist for marketplaces teams
Running a marketplace, whether for services, products, or digital goods, means holding buyer and seller data at scale. Your privacy policy isn't just a legal checkbox; it's the contract that tells users what you'll do with their information, and it directly affects their trust in your platform. Marketplace teams often juggle compliance (GDPR, CCPA, and emerging rules), vendor expectations, and internal security practices. Without a clear review process, gaps slip through, exposing your company t
DPA review checklist for B2B SaaS teams
When your team signs a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) with a SaaS vendor, you're setting the legal foundation for how customer data flows, who can access it, and what happens if something goes wrong. Most B2B SaaS buyers skim the DPA or skip it entirely, only to discover later that their vendor's data-handling practices don't match their compliance requirements. A thorough DPA review prevents costly breaches, audit failures, and vendor lock-in headaches.
Acceptable use policy review checklist for B2B SaaS teams
Your team just signed up for a new SaaS tool. The vendor's website looks polished, the free trial went smoothly, and now you need to review their Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) before rolling it out company-wide. But where do you start? AUPs are often buried in vendor documentation, written in legal language, and loaded with restrictions that could blindside your team mid-project.
Refund policy review checklist for B2B SaaS teams
When your team signs up for a new SaaS tool, whether it's a CRM, design platform, or communication suite, you're making a commitment. But what happens when the tool doesn't meet your needs, your team requirements change, or the vendor suddenly raises prices? That's where the refund policy comes in. A clear, fair refund policy protects your budget and gives you an exit ramp if things don't work out. The problem: most companies bury their refund terms in 50-page legal documents, use vague language
Terms of service review checklist for B2B SaaS teams
When your team signs up for a new SaaS tool, whether it's a project management platform, analytics dashboard, or customer data tool, you're entering a binding legal agreement. Most teams skip the terms of service entirely, clicking "I agree" without reading a single word. That shortcut can cost you thousands in unexpected charges, expose your data to uncontrolled AI training, lock you into forced arbitration, or trap you in auto-renewal clauses designed to make cancellation nearly impossible.
Privacy policy review checklist for B2B SaaS teams
When your team adopts a new SaaS tool, whether it's a project management platform, analytics suite, or AI assistant, you're signing more than a contract. You're also agreeing to a privacy policy that dictates how your data, your users' data, and sometimes your company's proprietary information are handled. For B2B teams, skipping the privacy policy review isn't just risky; it's negligent. Yet most teams do skip it, relying on vague assumptions that "it's probably standard."
Worksheet: compare children's data collection language across two ToS versions
When your child signs up for an educational app, math platform, or learning tool, you're trusting that company with their name, location, learning progress, and sometimes video footage. But terms of service change, sometimes quietly. This worksheet helps you spot what shifted in a company's data collection rules between two versions, so you can decide whether the new terms still protect your child's privacy.
Worksheet: compare cross-border data transfers language across two ToS versions
Every time a company updates its terms of service, your data privacy may shift beneath your feet, especially when it comes to cross-border data transfers. If a SaaS platform stores your information in one country but processes it in another (or many others), the legal protections you get depend entirely on what their ToS actually says. This worksheet guides you through spotting meaningful changes in that language, so you can tell the difference between a minor rewording and a real privacy reduction.
Worksheet: compare data sharing with advertisers language across two ToS versions
When a company updates its Terms of Service, the changes are rarely announced with a banner or email. Instead, users discover (or don't) that their data-sharing rules have shifted, often toward more aggressive advertising partnerships. This worksheet helps you spot those shifts and understand what they mean for your privacy before the next update sneaks in.
Worksheet: compare unilateral ToS changes language across two ToS versions
Most of us don't realize our terms of service change until we hit a new wall, a feature disappears, a price jumps, or a privacy promise evaporates. Companies have the legal right to modify their ToS unilaterally, often with minimal notice. The catch: you need to spot how they changed, what they changed, and why it matters to your rights. This worksheet helps you compare two versions of a ToS side by side, flag unilateral changes, and decode the language companies use to slip new restrictions past you.
Worksheet: compare surveillance advertising language across two ToS versions
When a service updates its terms of service, you rarely get a warning, and you almost never get a side-by-side comparison of what changed. Surveillance advertising and data-collection language is particularly tricky to spot, especially when companies soften their wording or bury new policies in legal jargon. This worksheet gives you a practical method to identify how a company's surveillance and advertising practices have shifted between two ToS versions, so you can decide whether you want to stay, renegotiate, or leave.
Worksheet: compare perpetual content licences language across two ToS versions
When a service you rely on updates its terms of service, you face a critical question: did the company just tighten its grip on your content, or loosen it? Perpetual content licences, the permissions companies claim over what you create, can shift dramatically between ToS versions. This worksheet helps you spot those changes, understand what they mean, and decide whether to stay or switch.
Worksheet: compare hidden fee escalation language across two ToS versions
Many SaaS tools, hosting platforms, and subscription services quietly change their pricing every year or two. They don't tell you loudly, instead, they hide fee increases in dense legal language that reads the same in both old and new versions, even though the numbers shift. This worksheet helps you spot those buried changes by comparing how two versions of a Terms of Service handle price escalation, percentage caps, and notice requirements.
Worksheet: compare forced arbitration language across two ToS versions
When a company updates its terms of service, the changes aren't always obvious, especially when it comes to dispute resolution and arbitration clauses. Forced arbitration language can shift subtly between versions, potentially stripping away your right to sue or limiting your access to class actions. This worksheet helps you systematically compare forced arbitration clauses across two ToS versions, spot what's changed, and understand what those changes mean for your consumer rights.
Worksheet: compare class action waivers language across two ToS versions
When a company updates its terms of service, the changes aren't always obvious. Some updates are cosmetic, fixing typos or reorganizing sections. But others slip in significant new restrictions, especially around your legal rights. Class action waivers are one of the most important clauses to watch for.
Worksheet: compare broad indemnification language across two ToS versions
When a vendor updates their Terms of Service, the indemnification clause often changes, sometimes for the better, sometimes to push more legal risk onto your shoulders. This worksheet helps you spot those shifts and decide whether the new version is acceptable for your team or if you need to negotiate before signing.
Worksheet: compare auto-renewal billing language across two ToS versions
When a SaaS tool or subscription service updates its terms, auto-renewal billing clauses often shift, sometimes in your favor, sometimes not. Spotting the difference between the old and new language can save you from surprise charges, surprise auto-renewals, or stricter cancellation windows. This worksheet walks you through a side-by-side comparison of auto-renewal and billing terms across two versions of a Terms of Service, so you can catch what changed before you re-agree to it.
Worksheet: compare AI training on user data language across two ToS versions
Every time a SaaS company updates its terms of service, the AI training clauses often shift, sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically. You might notice new language about "model improvement," broader data retention, or looser opt-out rules. But spotting these changes manually is tedious and error-prone. This worksheet gives you a repeatable, step-by-step method to compare how two versions of a ToS differ on AI training, so you can decide whether the new terms protect your data better or worse.
Terms of service template notes for B2B SaaS founders
If you're launching a B2B SaaS product, your terms of service (ToS) are one of the most overlooked yet legally critical documents you'll publish. Most founders grab a template, change the company name, and call it done, but that approach exposes you and your customers to disputes, regulatory fines, and trust erosion. This guide walks you through what a solid B2B SaaS ToS template should contain, why each section matters, and how to adapt it to your specific product and market.
Terms of service review checklist for AI tools teams
When your team signs up for a new AI tool, whether it's a coding assistant, data analyzer, or customer service chatbot, the terms of service almost always sit buried in a checkbox you click without reading. That's where most hidden traps live: forced arbitration clauses, permission to train AI on your data, auto-renewal gotchas, and liability limits that leave you exposed. This checklist helps your team spot and understand those clauses before signing.
Terms of Service Checklist for Online Marketplaces
When you buy or sell on an online marketplace, whether it's a freelance platform, resale site, or dropshipping network, you're agreeing to terms of service you've probably never fully read. Marketplaces bury crucial rules about fees, dispute resolution, data use, and account termination in dense legal prose. This checklist helps you spot the red flags, understand what you're really signing up for, and protect yourself before clicking "I Agree."
Refund Policy Template for Subscription Apps
Subscription apps are everywhere, design tools, project management software, productivity suites, fitness trackers. But buried in the fine print of most subscription services is a refund policy that's either nonexistent, vague, or heavily skewed toward the company. If you're buying a subscription and want your money back, you need to know exactly what the terms say before you pay.
Privacy policy template notes for marketplaces founders
Your marketplace connects buyers and sellers, or users and service providers, and handles sensitive personal data every day. A privacy policy isn't just legal paperwork; it's a promise to your users about how you collect, store, and protect their information. Without a clear, honest privacy policy, you risk losing customer trust, facing compliance fines, and attracting regulators. This guide walks you through building a privacy policy template tailored to marketplace-specific challenges: user data across multiple parties, third-party integrations, payment processing, and compliance across jurisdictions.
Limitation of Liability Clauses Explained for Users
When something goes wrong with a service or product you've paid for, you might naturally expect the company to take responsibility and compensate you for your losses. But buried in the terms of service, often in small print, is a clause that can severely limit or eliminate that responsibility. This is the limitation of liability clause, and it can mean the difference between recovering your losses and being left with nothing.
GDPR and Terms of Service: Checklist for EU Users
If you live or work in the European Union, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) gives you effective privacy rights, but only if you know what to look for in a service's terms and privacy policy. Most EU users skip the fine print, assuming the law protects them automatically. The reality is more nuanced: GDPR sets a floor, but companies can, and often do, ask for consent to practices that push those boundaries. This checklist walks you through the key clauses every EU user should audit before signing up, paying, or handing over personal data.
DPA review checklist for marketplaces teams
If you run a marketplace, or even just buy SaaS tools through one, every vendor relationship that touches personal data needs a Data Processing Agreement (DPA). The problem is that most DPAs are 15-page PDFs stuffed with legalese, and marketplace teams rarely have in-house counsel sitting next to them during procurement. This checklist turns the review into a repeatable, step-by-step process you can finish in under an hour.
Cookie policy review checklist for mobile apps teams
Mobile apps collect data the moment a user taps "Install," yet most teams treat cookie and tracking policies as an afterthought, something legal drafts the night before launch. The result is vague language, missing disclosures, and real regulatory risk. This checklist gives product managers, developers, and QA leads a repeatable, step-by-step process for reviewing cookie policies before every release so nothing slips through the cracks.
Cookie policy review checklist for e-commerce stores teams
If you run an e-commerce store, or work on the team behind one, your cookie policy is more than a legal checkbox. It shapes customer trust, determines whether you comply with privacy regulations, and directly affects how tracking, analytics, and marketing pixels behave on your site. Yet most store teams copy-paste a template once and never look at it again. This checklist changes that.
Cookie policy review checklist for creator platforms teams
Creator platforms, think Patreon, Gumroad, Teachable, Ko-fi, and dozens of newer alternatives, rely heavily on cookies to track subscriptions, serve personalized content, and run affiliate programs. If you're a creator, a small team managing multiple storefronts, or a privacy-conscious buyer subscribing to creator tools, the cookie policy buried in those platforms' legal pages can directly affect your data, your audience's data, and even your revenue. This checklist gives you a repeatable, step-by-step process to audit any creator platform's cookie policy before you commit.
Cookie policy review checklist for B2B SaaS teams
If your team evaluates B2B SaaS tools, whether you are the one signing the contract or the one approving the vendor, cookie policies deserve the same scrutiny as pricing pages. A poorly written cookie policy can expose your company to regulatory fines, erode customer trust, and create data-handling liabilities that ripple through your entire supply chain. This checklist walks you through every section you should inspect before you click "Accept" on behalf of your organization.
Checklist: spot unilateral ToS changes clauses before you subscribe
You are about to hand over your credit card to a new SaaS tool, streaming service, or marketplace. Somewhere in the terms of service sits a short paragraph that says the company can change the rules whenever it wants, without asking you first. That single clause, often called a "unilateral changes" or "modification" clause, can silently rewrite your privacy rights, raise your price, or strip away features you paid for.
Checklist: spot surveillance advertising clauses before you subscribe
You found a promising new app, your cursor is hovering over the "Start Free Trial" button, and somewhere below it sits a wall of legal text you will never read. Buried inside that wall are surveillance advertising clauses, provisions that let the company track your behavior, build a profile, and sell or share that profile with ad networks. This checklist will teach you exactly what to look for so you can make an informed decision in under five minutes.
Checklist: spot perpetual content licences clauses before you subscribe
You upload a photo to a design tool, paste a blog post into an AI writing assistant, or share a video through a social platform, and somewhere in the terms of service a single sentence quietly grants that company a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free licence to your content. Even after you cancel, your work can be used for advertising, model training, or sublicensing to third parties. These clauses are surprisingly common, and most people never notice them until it is too late.
Checklist: spot hidden fee escalation clauses before you subscribe
You signed up for a SaaS tool at $29 per month. Six months later the invoice reads $39, and you never agreed to a price hike, or so you thought. Buried deep in the terms of service was a single sentence granting the vendor the right to raise prices "at any time, with or without notice." Fee escalation clauses like this are shockingly common, and they cost subscribers hundreds of dollars a year in unexpected charges.
Checklist: spot forced arbitration clauses before you subscribe
You are about to enter your credit card number for a shiny new SaaS tool, streaming service, or AI app. Somewhere in the terms of service, buried under thousands of words you will never read, sits a clause that quietly strips away your right to sue the company in court. That clause is called a forced arbitration clause, and it affects far more subscriptions than most people realize. This checklist will teach you exactly what to look for, where to look, and how to protect yourself before you click "I agree."
Checklist: spot data sharing with advertisers clauses before you subscribe
You found a promising SaaS tool, a slick new app, or a subscription box that checks every feature on your wish list. Before you hand over your email and credit card, there is one question worth asking: will this company share your personal data with advertisers? Buried inside most terms of service and privacy policies are clauses that grant the company broad rights to pass your browsing habits, purchase history, and even device identifiers to third-party ad networks. This checklist helps you find those clauses in minutes, no law degree required.
Checklist: spot cross-border data transfers clauses before you subscribe
Every time you sign up for a SaaS tool, a cloud storage service, or an AI-powered app, your personal data may travel across continents before you even finish the onboarding wizard. Cross-border data transfer clauses buried deep inside terms of service determine which countries can access your information, under what legal framework, and with what safeguards. Missing these clauses can expose you to weaker privacy protections, government surveillance programs, or data-handling standards far below what you expect.
Checklist: spot class action waivers clauses before you subscribe
Buried deep inside the terms of service you click "I agree" on, there is often a single paragraph that strips away one of your most effective consumer rights: the ability to join a class action lawsuit. A class action waiver means that if the company overcharges thousands of users by a few dollars each, none of you can band together in court, you must fight alone, usually through private arbitration. This checklist will teach you exactly what to look for, where to look, and what to do once you find these clauses, all before you hand over your credit card.
Checklist: spot children's data collection clauses before you subscribe
You found a great new app for your kid, or maybe a SaaS tool your whole family will use. Before you tap "Subscribe," there is a question most people skip: does this service collect data from children, and what exactly does it do with that data? Children's privacy clauses are buried deep inside terms of service, wrapped in legal language that even attentive adults miss. This checklist gives you a concrete, repeatable process to spot those clauses in minutes, no law degree required.
Checklist: spot broad indemnification clauses before you subscribe
You found the perfect SaaS tool, the pricing looks fair, and the feature list checks every box. But buried deep in the terms of service is a single paragraph that could make you financially responsible for the vendor's own mistakes. That paragraph is the indemnification clause, and if it is written too broadly, you are signing up for far more than a monthly subscription fee. This checklist will help you spot those clauses, understand what they really mean, and decide whether the risk is worth it, all before you click "I agree."
Install Terms Doctor and Run Your First ToS Scan
You just signed up for a shiny new SaaS tool, and somewhere between the "Create Account" button and the dashboard tour you clicked "I agree to the Terms of Service" without reading a single line. You are not alone, most people do the same thing. The good news is that Terms Doctor, a free browser extension, can read those terms for you, run 101 consumer-protection checks in seconds, and hand you a simple A-F grade so you know exactly what you are agreeing to.
Checklist: spot auto-renewal billing clauses before you subscribe
You found the perfect SaaS tool, entered your credit card, and clicked "Start Free Trial." Six months later you discover you have been billed every month since the trial ended, and the cancellation window closed two weeks ago. Auto-renewal clauses are the silent budget killers hiding in terms of service, and most people never read them until the charge appears on their bank statement. This checklist will teach you exactly what to look for so you never get caught off guard again.
Checklist: spot AI training on user data clauses before you subscribe
You found the perfect SaaS tool, the pricing looks right, and the feature list checks every box. But buried somewhere in the terms of service is a clause that grants the company a perpetual, royalty-free license to use your data, including prompts, uploads, and outputs, to train its AI models. If you have ever wondered whether a service quietly feeds your content into a machine-learning pipeline, this checklist is for you.
Export Terms Doctor Reports for Legal Review
You just found a red flag buried in a SaaS vendor's terms of service, forced arbitration, a broad AI-training clause, or an auto-renewal trap that could lock you in for another year. Now you need to share that finding with a lawyer, a compliance team, or even your own future self. The fastest way to do that is to export the Terms Doctor report into a clean, portable file that anyone can open, search, and annotate without installing the extension themselves.
Acceptable use policy template notes for B2B SaaS founders
If you sell software to other businesses, your acceptable use policy (AUP) is the document that tells customers exactly what they can and cannot do with your product. A weak or missing AUP leaves you exposed to abuse, compliance headaches, and awkward conversations with enterprise prospects who expect one. These notes walk you through the clauses that matter most, the mistakes founders keep making, and a ready-to-use checklist so you can draft or audit your own AUP this week.
Acceptable use policy review checklist for AI tools teams
Every AI tool your team adopts comes with an acceptable use policy (AUP) that dictates what you can and cannot do with the service. Ignore it, and you risk account termination, data loss, or even legal liability. This checklist walks you through every clause you should review before rolling out a new AI tool across your organization, so you can move fast without breaking compliance.
Compare Two Versions of a Privacy Policy Side by Side
Privacy policies change all the time, often without any notification to you. A streaming service quietly adds an AI-training clause, a SaaS tool slips in forced arbitration, or a marketplace expands its data-sharing partners from five to fifty. If you are not comparing the old version against the new one, you will never know what rights you just lost. This guide walks you through exactly how to place two versions of a privacy policy side by side, spot the differences that matter, and automate the process so you never miss a critical change again.