Regarding affiliate links and liability

**burgerman** · 05-01-2009, 01:06 AM

Hypothetical situation:

You own and operate a web site that contains affiliate links. If a visitor buys a product from your site through one of these links and is injured from the product, are you partly to blame? Could you be successfully sued if the visitor takes legal action?

To those readers that have affiliate links on their site, are you worried about this possible scenario?

**copper** · 05-01-2009, 05:10 PM

put up TOS with mentioning of "we are not liable...".

**burgerman** · 05-02-2009, 09:45 PM

Thanks for the reply

Is a TOS good enough in all cases? Let's say you have affiliate links to a phone battery supplier. If site visitor buys a phone battery through one of these links and the battery explodes (which they're known to do) and scars the person's face, I could see them still including you in a lawsuit.

Does anyone else agree?

**silverclick** · 05-02-2009, 11:14 PM

Originally Posted by burgerman

Thanks for the reply

Is a TOS good enough in all cases? Let's say you have affiliate links to a phone battery supplier. If site visitor buys a phone battery through one of these links and the battery explodes (which they're known to do) and scars the person's face, I could see them still including you in a lawsuit.

Does anyone else agree?

I think it is possible for someone to get mad at a company and sue it and all its affiliates

Best way is to setup a corporate entity for liability protection at the very least.

I would be interested to know what other people think as well ...

**HuntingMoon** · 05-03-2009, 05:11 PM

most affiliate agreements indemnify the resellers/publishers from product/service liability. check them out if you are concerned. a suit would probably be for contributory actions or misrepresentation or something else- point being that it can and does happen.