YES!

Only a small percentage of visitors to your website will even notice you have a privacy policy, but it only takes one simple legal instance and you will be glad you have one.

If you are conducting eCommerce on your website, not only is it critical, in most cases it is absolutely necessary in order for your payment gateway to release your sales revenue into your account.

Most clients of Opuscule, though, only have simple “Contact Us” forms on their sites. And for a few of your visitors, it is ver important to them what you do with the information they put into that form. Are you creating a huge list of completed form entries and selling them to other websites for SPAM purposes? That would be something I’d like to know…

What Goes Into a Privacy Policy?

1. There is a good chance that you are using a visitor tracking program like the ever popular Google Analytics on your website. In these cases, you will need to disclose that a cookie is placed on your visitor’s computer for the purpose of tracking their behavior on your site. This is a very common practice, and should not surprise anyone. You can review the privacy policy of Google Analytics if you would like more information about what sorts of data is collected and how it is stored.
2. If you are collecting a person’s information through a form, than you will want to make it clear what is happening with that information. If you have a form where people can subscribe to your email newsletter, or the form they fill out to get in contact with you, they need to know what’s happening with their information. This is especially critical if you are conducting any online sales where people enter their credit card information. This also includes how you are protecting that information.
3. Certain states across the US have specific items that will need to be placed in your website’s privacy policy as well as federal laws.
4. You should have something about when this version of your privacy policy was created; that you have the right to change it at any time; and how you notify visitors when a change happens to your privacy policy. Usually a message like, “If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page. This policy was last modified on 04/27/2011″
5. When you link your website to other sites, like in this post for example, you should explain that you are not responsible for the content of those websites. This is commonly called “Third Party Links.”
6. Your contact information should be somewhere on the privacy policy in instances where people can write or call you directly regarding the content of your privacy policy.
7. A phrase explaining that by using your website, the visitor agrees to the privacy policy.

How Do I Create a Great Privacy Policy?

Of course, the best privacy policies are written by skilled attorneys, but it may not be necessary to spend $200/hour to have a simple document drafted for your website. In most cases, Opuscule’s clients are comfortable using the Free Privacy Policy Generator. Of course it is full of flashy advertisements and invitations to get you to spend money, but in the end the service is still free.

A few of Opuscule’s clients spend some time researching other website’s privacy policy pages and using that information to draft their own, and even some will seek out advice blog postings like this one. And like it was mentioned there, your privacy policy should be easy to read and understand. Too much legal jargon will confuse

Please note that we are not lawyers, nor are we qualified to give legal advice, but the information here is meant to be considered by website owners.

Affordable Small Business Websites

The awesome web developers of Opuscule help small business clients create not only excellent and legally sound privacy policies, but also professional looking websites on a budget by using the latest technology. All of our clients also have the ability to access the administrator side of their websites and add/change/delete pages and blog postings at their leisure. Our services include a one-on-one tutorial of how to use the content management system and help getting through the tricky parts. Contact us today to learn more. We can get you online today.

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