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When you are first starting up a home business, your initial thoughts are not about business structure but more centered around product(s), market segment, funding etc. After the dust settles and you start to manage your business and revenue is coming in, you just may want to step back and think about a few legal matters.
You will need to give some consideration to your legal structure. The question is should you incorporate, form an LLC (Limited Liability Corporation) or stay as a sole proprietor. This questions can sometimes be answered easily by doing a little research on the Internet. Before you start to form your legal operating structure be sure to deal with a reputable online service. MyCorporation.com is now owned by Intuit the company that sells Quicken and Quickbooks software. We have had along term relationship with My Corporation and find them to be one of the best online legal structure services.
For example: Do you sell information products? If you do you may want to think very seriously about Earnings Disclaimers or forward earnings statements. If you have a membership site or you offer downloads you may want to consider a Terms of Service agreement. If you own any real estate or have assets you will also want to consider forming a corporation or LLC. If you are collecting names and email addresses for your newsletter you will need to develop a Privacy Policy for your site.
The Internet is still evolving every day, every hour and minute and constantly changing. You need to keep up and stay abreast with the latest information and trends, not only for your marketing efforts but for your personal and business protection.
Working for Yourself: Law & Taxes for Independent Contractors, Freelancers & Consultants (6th Edition)
There are several ways in which to do this. One way is to subscribe to an honest and unbiased periodical specifically focused on the online business world. Our favorite publication comes to your door not online and it's called Revenue Magazine. One of the best free Internet Legal sites is BitLaw.com BitLaw defines itself as " BitLaw is a comprehensive Internet resource on technology law, containing over 1,800 pages on patent, copyright, trademark, and Internet legal issues." I am astounded at the amount of information on this site, managed by the Minneapolis law firm of Beck & Tysver. This is an excellent free resource.
Another way is to have access to necessary website legal information such as terms of service, earnings disclaimers and privacy policy pages is to customize them for your own site. This can be accomplisged by utilizing special software specific to that purpose. Our reccomendation is Auto Web Law. Auto Web Law is a unique program that solves the issue of disclaimer, terms of and policy pages for your website. For more information Click Here. | 
