If you have a blog/website and they have not privacy policy page. Here is your answer is yes then you will face a bigger problem in the future. It is mandatory that you write a privacy policy for your blog if you are a blogger or you have a website.
What is a Privacy Policy?
According to Wikipedia, “A privacy policy is a statement or a legal document (in privacy law) that discloses some or all of the ways a party gathers, uses, discloses, and manages a customer or client’s data. It fulfills a legal requirement to protect a customer or client’s privacy. Personal information can be anything that can be used to identify an individual, not limited to the person’s name, address, date of birth, marital status, contact information, ID issue, and expiry date, financial records, credit information, medical history, where one travels, and intentions to acquire goods and services. In the case of a business, it is often a statement that declares a party’s policy on how it collects, stores, and releases personal information it collects. It informs the client what specific information is collected, and whether it is kept confidential, shared with partners, or sold to other firms or enterprises.”
If you write the best privacy policy then it will save you from a lot of problem in the future. Let’s see some of the cause why you need to write a functional and perfect privacy policy on your website or blog.
The Advantage of a Privacy Policy Page on Your Blog
Your reader gets more trust on your blog or website: Users should know why you need their personal data & how you planning to use it.
You will be saved from litigation: The principle of your blog is saved by the privacy policy. You will find it handy when some consumers want to slap a lawsuit on you even when they are at fault due to their own ignorance.
The good policy will help you to secure your business.
Guide To Crafting A Meaningful Privacy Policy
1. Use simple English for writing: It should be simple enough for all visitors to read and comprehend. Easy of understanding is the best perfection for good privacy policy. If your privacy policy is very hard and complex to understand then the user will log out from your website or blog and go with another website where they find easy to understand the policy.
2. Must add the relevant laws you fulfill: There may be federal and/or state privacy laws that govern your practices. If you comply with these regulations, include that information.
3. Must type the collected information: You user must aware about that what kind of information you are collecting from them. If you collect the personal data (cookies, credit card numbers, email addresses, etc.) then must specify it on your privacy policy.
4. Where and how the collected information will be used: You must inform your customer that for what purpose their personal data will use. you must share their information with third parties, clearly say so. Customers should never be left guessing.
5. Analytics and Google privacy requirement: If you are earning via AdSense then never forget to add this information in your privacy policy. Also, if you use Analytics, Google will frown upon you if your privacy policy information isn’t in the right place.
6. Must include the effective date: You should include when this policy will start to take effect. And you must also include how customers will be notified if you make any changes to this policy.
7. How to opt-out: If a customer decided to leave your service then your privacy policy should make a provision for that.
8. It can be updated anytime: Let your customers know that any information is subject to change at any time. On-demand that you update your privacy policy to remain in business.
The Important Privacy Policies That You Need
There are many privacy policies can be included in your blog. While you may not need all of them, you probably need to include at least these two:
1. AdSense Privacy Policy
If you are the blogger then you probably want to earn some income from the popular Google Adsense program. To qualify for this, Google needs to see an AdSense privacy policy on your website.
Failing to do this will disqualify you from using AdSense. You must include by this rule because when you signed up for AdSense, you accepted their terms and conditions.
2. Analytics Privacy Policy
If you have been using Google Analytics on your blog without a privacy policy, you should make one before Google finds out and penalizes you. If you have Google Analytics on your blog, it is required that you have a privacy policy on it.