Is It Time to Update Your Privacy Policy?

Most business owners now realize they must have a privacy policy for their websites. But how often should they be updated? Legal experts agree that privacy policies should be updated once a year unless significant website or business changes occur that merit changing them sooner.

For example, changes in your physical address, management, corporate policies, phone number, products, and services should be disclosed to your online visitors as soon as those changes are made. Not doing so could disrupt your business, harm your reputation, or even cause you legal problems.

Privacy PolicyWhen creating or updating your privacy policy, be careful of saying things that you don’t mean just because everyone else is saying it. For example, True.com, a dating site, was trying to sell its database to PlentyofFish.com for $700,000. The Texas Attorney General stepped in and objected to the sale arguing that True.com had promised not to sell its users’ private information in its privacy policy. True.com had included a statement reading: “We respect your privacy. We will never sell, rent or disclose your email address to another party.”

The court ruled the privacy policy acted as a contract. Given this, True.com could not sell the email addresses of users of the site to PlentyofFish.com and the court invalidated the $700,000 transaction. Just as importantly, the ruling essentially made it impossible for True.com to sell its database to any other potential buyer.

As you can image, the ruling in the True.com case was a bit of a shocker. Online businesses rushed to update their website legal documents to reflect this new paradigm. Did you?

Creating or updating your privacy policy is easy with FreePrivacyPolicy.com. Just like the name says, it’s free to use their privacy policy creation wizard. Just answer a few questions and they’ll give you a unique privacy policy ready to paste onto your website in minutes.


Special thanks to Richard A. Chapo and SocialInternetLawyer.com for its article found here.

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