Marketing Outsourcing Danger #4
Who owns the info?
Do you own your customers?
You might be surprised. If the vendor comes into contact
with the customer in any way, it is possible by the terms of your
agreement that they have just as much right to that client as you
do -- or even more! By contract, if they provide financial
processing, they might be able to contact them too. Never
underestimate the guerilla marketing tactics of a company that is
aggressively seeking customers.
If someone writes an article for
you, do you own it, do they, or do you both have rights to
it? What about graphics? Do you own the rights to the
pictures on your website? Many people do not. The web
developer might own them or unfortunately, some less than
scrupulous web developers will steal photos and then put them on
your website.
In such cases, guess who is
liable!!! Actually, probably both of you. Though the
web developer might also be liable to you for damages, you could
be liable to the copyright holder and have to sue the developer
for damaging you.
If you have a website, you also
might be interested in who owns it. If you have opted for
one of these deals that costs nothing up front but you pay by the
month, chances are that you are only leasing it but own nothing.
