What Should I Include in My Privacy Policy?
There are probably more than a few business owners and entrepreneurs, perhaps new to the online e-commerce world, that are asking that question right now. Hopefully this article can help steer you in the right direction. Perhaps it needs to be said that not having an internationally accepted privacy policy displayed and accessible to your e-commerce website is no longer an option.
Here are the basics of what needs to be included in your privacy policy:
Who You Are
Here you need to include the name of the person responsible for the online business, the official name of the business, its physical address, email address, and preferably a phone number. If a visitor is afraid that he or she will not be able to contact you after the sale, they probably won’t do business with you.
What You Plan on Doing with PII
Before people do business with you, they want to know what you plan on doing with their PII (Personally Identifiable Information). This includes telling them what information you plan on collecting and why you need that information (to better serve your visitors or customers, to provide additional content for them, etc.).
Whether or Not You Will Share PII
You must disclose with whom you plan on sharing their data including the name of the third-party involved if you know it, and why you are going to share that information with others. The truth is that there will be some people who will buy from you without realizing that you are sharing their information with a third-party (because they didn’t read your privacy policy). It is also true that if you do share your information with a third-party, and visitors know about it by reading your privacy policy, that they might choose not to do business with you. But at least you were honest and up-front with people and if anyone gets mad and wants to sue you for sharing their PII, at least you can show them that you warned them up-front that you were going to do it.
What Rights Users Have in Terms of Withdrawing Consent to Use PII
Your visitors and customers want to know if there is an easy way for them to opt-out or remove their PII from you and your business and its accompanying website and third-party affiliates. The way for them to do this should be spelled out for them in your privacy policy. That’s because as consumers we’ve all made bad choices when it comes to online relationships and we want to make sure that if this becomes one of those choices – or just a choice that we no longer need – that we can withdraw from this relationship.
You can do all of this on your own (plus comply with all the CalOPPA, COPPA, PCI and FTC rules and regulations) or you can choose to use a privacy policy generator like those offered for free from FreePrivacyPolicy.com. They have completed more than 500,000 privacy policies for website owners all over the world. Once you know how you are going to set up your business based on the above-mentioned procedures, you simply fill out the easy step-by-step template and then copy and paste your completed privacy policy’s code onto your website.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact Shayne.
