
Ask HN: What Alpha Test Legal Agreements do you need for your app? - abbadadda
I am about to release a very early Alpha version of an app I have been working on to friends and family. What legal agreements do I need to put in place for this, if any? Or is this all semantics and should I consider my current release the &quot;Beta&quot; version of my app?<p>As discussed in this article (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;instabug.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;beta-test-legal-agreements&#x2F;), it makes complete sense that you need a legal agreement between you and your Beta Testers, but what about at the Alpha testing stage? Should you trust your friends and family without any NDAs, terms and conditions, or limited liability? Or are you better off finding some boilerplate legal document that basically says, &quot;If you use the app you won&#x27;t (1) sue me unless something goes really wrong; and (2) you won&#x27;t copy my idea.&quot; Or is putting this in place overkill and unnecessary before you even know what you have?<p>I&#x27;d be especially interested to hear how Dropbox handled the release of the Alpha version of their product since they went through YC (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ycombinator.com&#x2F;apply&#x2F;dropbox&#x2F;). It is clear they had Beta testers so I&#x27;d be interested to know what type of agreements they had in place with each tester before signing them up.<p>For what it is worth, it is a web app that should not have the ability to cause any physical injury. However, data protection is obviously an important responsibility that poses liability risk if user data was compromised without any legal agreements in place.<p>Any advice is greatly appreciated!
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abbadadda
Beuler?

