Having a website privacy policy is pretty important for bloggers. In this post I’ll outline why and show you where to find a free website privacy policy (or 6) for your blog.
What Do They Do?
A website privacy policy outlines how a website collects, uses, discloses and manages someone else’s information. This information includes not only obvious things that a visitor might enter, such as email addresses or contact details, but also things which might not be so obvious to the casual user. Things like whether the website (or advertising on that website) will leave cookies to monitor visitors’ online activities, and if their IP addresses are tracked. This not only helps visitors to know what their information will be used for, but also helps to protect the website owner.
Different websites do different things and therefore need different privacy policies. This is the first reason not to take another website’s privacy policy and use it as your own – it simply may not suit you needs. Copying another website’s privacy policy without permission may also infringe on the copyright of whoever drafted it, which is something best avoided.
A Requirement for Advertising Networks
While it is a generally a good idea to have a website privacy policy, it becomes quite important when running adverts on a blog, given these networks may leave cookies on visitors’ computers in order to track their behaviour. Some ad networks, such as Google AdSense, require that a website running their ads must have a privacy policy which sets out a number of things.
For example, the Google Adsense Terms and Conditions require (at [1]) that websites to have a privacy policy that:
- discloses that third parties may be placing and reading cookies on users’ browser, or using web beacons to collect information, in the course of ads being served on the website; and
- includes information about user options for cookie management.
The Google AdSense help page provides a bit more help on what to put in a website’s privacy policy, but unfortunately doesn’t provide a template.
If a website runs ads from a particular advertising network without meeting the privacy policy requirements imposed by that network, this may be a breach of the terms of use for that particular advertising program (it is for AdSense), and may potentially result in an advertising account being suspended or cancelled. So better to have a website privacy policy than not, even just a basic one.
Free Website Privacy Policies
There are a number of different places that you can find a free website privacy policy which you can use for your blog. The ones that I found (from some quick googling for phrases like ‘website privacy policy’ and ‘privacy policy generator’) vary a bit in what they do.
1) AdSense Privacy Policies: these tend to be shorter, and are targeted towards satisfying the requirements of advertising networks for bloggers, rather than being suitable for websites with a larger commercial use:
- Serp Rank AdSense Privacy Policy Generator – a privacy policy generator that creates a custom AdSense privacy policy, based on a few basic details. Easy to use, easy to understand and seems suitable for affiliate marketers.
- JenSense Sample Website Privacy Policy – a straight template which will can be copied then customised by simply inserting the url of your website. Very clear and appears to be Google AdSense compliant.
2) Commercial Privacy Policies: these tend to be lengthier and provide much more detail on how information is used and stored, which is a good idea if you have an online checkout or registration requirement for visitors:
- FreePrivacyPolicy.com – a highly customisable privacy policy generator, which appears potentially suitable for websites which are a bit more involved than a standard blog. The sample policies produced seem relatively easy to understand.
- OECD Privacy Statement Generator – this privacy policy generator which involves a fairly detailed questionnaire regarding data practices. Requires login.
3) UK Privacy Law Compliant Policies: these are free website privacy policies that seem suitable for commercial sites and pay attention to the particular requirements of UK privacy law:
- WebsitePrivacyPolicy.co.uk – this site offers a sample website privacy policy prepared by a UK law firm that is available for free download, with guidance notes. It makes specific mention of UK law but doesn’t seem to go into the level of detail regarding cookie usage that the AdSense privacy policy templates do.
- Business Link Free Website Privacy Policy – a template provided courtesy of the UK government. It refers to UK law, but is relatively straightforward and provides a nice explanation of how cookies work.
Which One is the Right Fit?
Which of these free website privacy policies (or combination of these policies) is right for your blog will really depend on what you use it for. Personally, I’ll be using a combination of them but I will be cutting some of the detail that is more comprehensive than I require.
One of the other key things that a website should do is to set out the terms of use (or terms and conditions) for that site. In a future post I’ll be looking into what sort of things these documents should cover and where to find some free ones. However, before I get into this I’ll be looking at what to do if someone copies your blog content without permission.
© Tom McEwin
AffiliatePlayground.net
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