TM, SM, and ® - what do they mean? ​TM and SM are used for unregistered trademarks and service marks, respectively. However, the ® symbol indicates that a mark is registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

Be careful if your business collects personal information from children under the age of thirteen- generally, most businesses do not want this type of information for a very specific reason.  Congress enacted the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in the late 90's.  COPPA applies to opperators of commercial websites and online services (including mobile apps) directed to children under thirteen that collect, use, or disclose personal information from children, and operators of general audience websites or online services with actual knowledge that they are collecting, using, or disclosing personal information from children under thirteen.

Somewhere on this page there is a link to this site's terms of service and privacy policy. Very few consumers read online terms and policies, even for sites and apps they use daily. If no one reads these terms and policies, why bother having them?  Just because these terms and policies are not well read does not mean that they are not binding contracts that could be helpful to your company's online presence.  There are many situations where having either click-through or passive terms of service and privacy policies can be helpful, and here are the top five reasons you may want website terms and policies:

How do you resolve a dispute over a domain name? For example, if you own Widgets, Inc. (and use that name in commerce), and another person registers www.widgetsinc.com, what can you do?  Among other options, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has a streamlined Uniform Dispute Resolution Procedure (UDRP) that allows for an expedited process to resolve these types of disputes.