I have been doing some long overdue housekeeping on my website to get everything in order to make this a place where you feel will safe and welcome. Today’s focus is adding two essential documents every site must have; a Privacy Policy and a Terms of Service policy.
In fact, Google and other search engines scan your site to determine if you have a privacy policy and rank you accordingly (they may even penalize you). There is just no reason not to have one. As I wrote previously on Authenticity, your claims need to be believable and you and your site need to be credible and trust worthy. The presence of a privacy policy and terms of service is a step in the right direction.
There are also, other documents that may be necessary depending on the purpose and functionality of your website and the rules and regulations required in your industry.
Three Reasons Having a Privacy Policy is Essential
- Prove to website visitors your site is trustworthy
- Transparancy. To reveal and share your privacy practices
- To protect yourself and website vistitors, especially children under the age of 13
- BONUS! Provide website visitors a method to contact you
Where Can You Get a Decent Privacy Policy?
There are a number of resources that generate free privacy policies. I am using this one from FreePrivacyPolicy.com by Trust Guard and once I read more about I decided to get their paid version. Other free privacy policy generators I’ve used seemed okay for the moment, but I always had some doubt I would be protected if there were ever an issue. This one seems pretty comprehensive and is very close to the paid version they offer.
If you decide to use a free privacy policy generator for yourself you should seriously ask you legal department or counsel.
(WARNING! RED TAPE ALERT! Just be careful with the legal beagles, they might want to create their own 150 page privacy policy from HELL that you will need an act of congress to get approved!
To learn more about selecting a Website Privacy Policy visit this blog to do some research.
Here is a short list of Privacy Policy Providers I found while searching for one for myself:
There are other sites out there that specialize in other policies that you may need, for instance if you advertise using Google AdSense.
Does your site have a Privacy Policy and Terms of Service? What service do you use and recommend?