Does Your Website have a Privacy Policy?

Hello!

As web 2.0 continues to expand, online privacy is becoming a major focus point for individual consumers and regulators. Specifically, there is concern about how personal information of users and visitors of social networks and blogs is gathered and used by owners of these sites. There are several bodies of rules and regulations that address this very issue. They are the Federal Trade Commission's rules on behavioral advertising, Communications Decency Privacy Act, European Union Directive on Data Protection and various state privacy laws.

An owner of a website should have a very clear and direct privacy policy that states the following:

1. what type of personal information is collected
2. what type of technology is used to collect information
3. how the website will use the information collected
4. who will receive the personal information collected
5. specific measures in place to protect personal information
6. if the website will not use personal information
7. if the user voluntarily shares their personal information to the public, then their is no expectation of privacy,
8. how one can opt out of their personal information being gathered and/or shared with third parties.

Having a privacy policy can minimize liability for invasion of privacy claims and ensure a website owner is compliant with all federal and state privacy laws. A privacy policy also protects the reader or user of the website. The consumer is informed about how their information is used and can dictate to website owners whether they want their information shared or not.

Having a privacy policy is just good business sense.

I welcome your thoughts!