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Why a Good Privacy Policy Matters
By Kristel Keys Running, Director of Marketing Services
If your website collects, tracks, or handles personal data, you need to have a privacy policy. A good privacy policy protects both your business and your customers. Plus, you’re legally required to have one.
What is a privacy policy?
A privacy policy is a legal document that explains how you collect customer data, why you collect customer data, what you will do with the data, and the rights of the customer with regards to your collection of their data.
It should include the following sections:
- Your business name and contact information
- The categories of data that you collect such as:
- Name
- Location
- Demographic data
- Internet location data
- The sources of the data and how you collect it (ex. advertising, third-party apps, asking for the customer to provide the data).
- How you will use the data, such as:
- Email address will be used to send order information and email marketing.
- Contact information will be used to fulfill orders.
- Google analytics data will be used for advertising.
- The ways that the data will be stored and protected, and the people who will have access to the data.
- A clear description of the consumer’s rights with regards to your collection of their data and their ability to access it. We often handle this section with the sentence “You can email us at [email address] to remove all personal information from our website”
- How you will update the privacy policy and inform customers of any changes.
The privacy policy should be written in clear, easy to understand language without unnecessary jargon. It should be accessible from a clear link on your website.
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Why you need a privacy policy
There is no federal law in the United States requiring privacy policies, but many states have state level laws such as the California Online Privacy Protection Act. If someone in a state with such a law could visit your site, then you need to follow the law and have a privacy policy.
Additionally, lots of third party apps require privacy policies. You need a privacy policy to use Google Analytics.
How to create a privacy policy
Because it’s a legal document, you need to be intentional about how you create your privacy policy.
The most comprehensive option is to hire a lawyer to write the policy, though that can get expensive
There are many online sites that will generate a policy for you based on the types of data you collect. Make sure to vet any site to make sure you are getting a legitimate privacy policy that complies with the legal regulations.
You can also base your privacy policy off of existing policies for sites like yours. When we are building websites at Good Roots, we model our privacy policies after the Seven Sons privacy policy. Seven Sons collects and uses data in the same way as most farms and food businesses who do ecommerce which makes its privacy policy applicable to our clients.
If you don't have a privacy policy or haven’t looked at yours in a while, now is an excellent time to make sure you have one that accounts for all of the ways that you are collecting and handling data.
