Website Privacy Policy Generator

Published by Your SEO Mentor under Entrepreneurship, Online Marketing

Dec
12
2008

Most of my readers are website owners and a I get a lot of questions from a lot of you. One of the recent questions was about privacy policy laws and creation. I want you all to understand the importance of a Privacy Policy, how to create a professional privacy policy and how to take advantage of having a privacy policy on a website.

Whether you use a free or paid website privacy policy generator you need to understand what a privacy policy is and why it is important to have one on your website.

So the first question that needs to be answered is, “What is a Privacy Policy?” Lets first off look at the Wikipedia definition of a Privacy Policy,

“A privacy policy is a legal document that is dealing with the information related to customers’ and merchants’ private profiles. Such examples could be the instance of a website providing information about the use of personal information – particularly personal information collected via the website – by the website owner. Privacy policies usually contain details of what personal information is collected, how the personal information may be used, the persons to whom the personal information may be disclosed, the security measures taken to protect the personal information, and whether the website uses cookies and/or web bugs.”

Why do I need a Privacy Policy?

The above is a pretty straight forward definition but why does a website need a privacy policy? Well first of all this gives your visitors a sense of confidence to even be browsing your website and builds trust and confidence when you ask them for private information.

The amount of online and identity related crimes that are perpetrated yearly is increasing at a truly staggering rate. According to a study done by Forrester Research in October, 40% of visitors to e-commerce websites look for a privacy policy and seal, and customer interest in privacy policy seals is expected to grow.That is a significant percentage of people looking for a trust and confidence. So the question is, why would you not want a privacy policy for your website? It is a logical assumption.

Another reason is because there’s substantial exposure to liability if you don’t have a privacy policy. Everyone online must comply with applicable laws set forth by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and other laws like the California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003 which became effective on July 1, 2004. COPPA is the first state law in the nation to require owners of commercial websites or online services to post a privacy policy. Although COPPA is only a California state law, it has essentially become a de facto federal law.

How do I create a Privacy Policy?

So I have answered the ‘What’ and ‘Why’ of placing a privacy policy on your website but the real question is, “HOW?” That is a great question and that is the very purpose of this blog post.

Once you realize that you need a Privacy Policy the question that usually comes up is, “How Do I Create a Privacy Policy?” Well that is a great question and I have good and bad news with the answer. The bad news is that everyone’s privacy policy will be different with what is going on the website. The good news is that there are some simple guidelines that everyone can and should follow.

Here are some items that you must have in your privacy policy:

What information do you collect?

Your privacy policy needs to tell people when you collect information and what kind of information you collect. For example do you collect information when someone registers on your website, when someone orders, subscribes to a newsletter, or fills out a form?

Next when you address where they collect the information you need to let them know what kind of personal information you collect, for example, name, address, phone number, credit card, etc.

What do you use the personal information for?

You need to add what you will be doing with the information that you collect. Will you be using the information to personalize your users experience, improve your website, improve customer service, process transactions, send periodic emails, etc.

How do you protect the information?

It needs to be stated what measures you take to protect the individuals personal information. Do you store the information on your servers? If so how long? Do you use a secure server to store the information? These items will not only protect you as the business owner but it will also give your visitors and customers peace of mind and more confidence.

Do you use cookies?

This is simple, either you do or you do not use cookies. If you don’t know what a cookie is then check out this definition at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie. If you use a analytic software like Google Analytics or any type of tracking software then you are probably using cookies.

Do you disclose any information to outside parties?

You need to be very clear to your online visitors if you sell or disclose information to any third parties what so ever.

Do you comply with the California Online Privacy Protection Act?

This item is a must for your privacy policy. To find out more about the California Online Privacy Protection act a good place to research is http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/ and http://www.oispp.ca.gov/. Here are some things you need in your privacy policy to comply with OPPA. First of all you need to state:
A) Once this privacy policy is created, will you add a link pointing to your privacy policy to at least your homepage, or the first significant page after entering your website?
B) Once this privacy policy is created, will your Privacy Policy link contain the word “Privacy”, and be easily found on the above mentioned page?
C) Have you accurately filled out the information in “Step 1 – What information do we collect”
above?

Also if you have a membership site you must state whether or not the individual can change their information and where to go to do so.

Do you comply with COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act)?

To find out more about COPPA visit http://www.coppa.org/. If you operate a commercial website or an online service directed at children under 13 that collects personal information from children or if you operate a general audience Web site and have actual knowledge that you are collecting personal information from children, you must comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. You must state whether you do or not and if you do then you must add a COPPA compliant policy based on the COPPA website requirements found at http://www.coppa.org/comply.htm.

Changes to your Privacy Policy

It is also important that you add to your policy the last time you updated your policy and how you will notify people of the change. Whether you will send out an email stating that you did so or by adding “This policy was last modified on ‘date here’.”

So these are just a few of the main points that you cannot leave out of your privacy policy. It seems like a lot but it really isn’t that difficult. You should always present your privacy policy to your lawyer for review to make sure you are covering all your bases.

The most simple way to create a great professional privacy policy is by using a website privacy policy generator.

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 10:47 am and is filed under Entrepreneurship, Online Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.