I bet you’ve seen hundreds of contests on pages and even Facebook profiles which breach the current Facebook pages terms. But, do you really know the legal terms that you need to follow when creating a contest on Facebook?

A breach of these terms may involve the removal of a Facebook page, without the possibility to recover the information or the community created during the time the page was managed. We are going to explain some of the new aspects of Facebook rules to ensure that this doesn’t happen to you:

• Firstly, it’s forbidden to create contests or promotions from Facebook profiles. Instead, they have to be created from a company page.
• If you want to run a contest, the only way to do it is through an external application, just like any of the applications we offer in Cool-Tabs. It’s strictly forbidden to do it on the page wall.
• It is also forbidden to use any Facebook features or functionality as an entry or registration mechanism. The only exceptions to this rule are liking a page, checking in to a place with Facebook Places, or connecting with the application you have created for the contest. You must not condition participation in the contest upon the user liking a wall post or commenting on it.
• Facebook does not allow to notify promotion’ winners through the fan page (private messages, chat, or posts on walls). Instead, winners can be notified via email or through the application which has been created.
• The promotion’s terms and conditions must include acknowledgement that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.
• It’s important to make clear that the information provided by users during the course of the contest is collected by the promotion’s administrators, not Facebook.

Besides the current Facebook terms, some other legal regulations need to be taken into account when running a contest or a draw on the Internet. These terms vary depending on the country in which the promotion is developed. They apply to all contests run on the Internet, regardless of the channel in which they take place. In Spain, the law regulating these aspects is the Online Gaming Act, which main provisions are as follows:

• The Public Administration doesn’t need to be informed of any contests or draws in which participants don’t have to pay for participating.
• If the winner of the draw / contest is selected by a jury, no tax will have to be paid to the Treasury. However, if the winner is selected by random, a 10-15% tax will be deducted from the prize value.
• It is not necessary to register the promotion’s terms and outcome with a Notary.

As far as the terms are concerned, even if submitting them is not necessary, it is advisable to do it. Moreover, we recommend you to include in the terms some aspects such as the fact that the gift is free, the competition dates, the eventual assignment of image and content rights for the content the user has contributed, the right to delete comments, the right to change the prize, etc. All these details will help you to best manage the contest you organise and to avoid any conflicts.