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Whether you are a new blogger or entrepreneur, it’s important that you have a privacy policy on your website. As a tech attorney, I’m here to inform you of why every blog or website needs a privacy policy and how to easily create one. While I am an attorney, I am not your attorney. I am here to provide you with advice on how to better protect your blog.
Without a doubt, establishing an online business is super exciting, yet overwhelming. I hope to make this experience a bit easier for you by helping you legally protect your blog and yourself from potential lawsuits.
What Is A Privacy Policy?
If you own or operate a website, it is vital that you have a privacy policy on your site. A privacy policy discloses information about how your website or blog obtains, gathers, and manages information from visitors to your site. In addition, a privacy policy lays the framework for how you plan to collect and use your visitors’ data. This information collected from visitors can be personal, in that it can be used to potentially identify individuals. Personal information collected from your website or blog can include: visitors’ names, email addresses, visitors’ comments, social media information, and more.
How Can Your Blog Collect Personal Information?
There are many ways that your blog can collect personal information, even if it is only a day old! Blogs are a powerful way to build an audience all over the world. Blogs and websites use a variety of technologies to attract, engage, and better understand an audience. Here are some common ways in which your blog is collecting personal information from visitors:
Ads
Are you interested in or currently using ad programs such as Google Adsense or Mediavine? If so, it is likely that your blog is or will collect personal information to display ads that cater to particular visitors. Because ads collect information about website users, it’s vital to include that you use ads in your privacy policy.
List Sign-Ups
Are you hoping to build a large subscriber list for e-mail marketing? If your website has a subscribe section or pop-up subscribe button, it is most likely collecting information about a subscriber so that you can get in contact with him/her later. This information includes first and last names, emails, phone numbers, or birthdays.
Comment Section
Many websites, especially blogs, allow visitors to comment on posts or content. If your blog has a comment section, your blog is very likely collecting information about the commenter. Because many blogs and websites require users to include their name and e-mail address when inserting a comment, personally identifiable information can be collected upon comment insertion.
Social Sharing
When a visitor sees an image or reads a blog post that they like on your website, they may want to share it on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.) When a visitor shares information on your site on social media, your site obtains information about the visitor and how the visitor is connected to a particular social media platform.
Why Does Your Blog Or Website Need a Privacy Policy?
Without a doubt, there are many important reasons why your blog or website needs a privacy policy.
As an attorney, I must inform you that your blog’s privacy policy is required by law.
Privacy Policies Must Comply With The Law
Any website, blog, app, or online business must have a Privacy Policy because it is required by law. Your blog’s privacy policy must comply with the privacy laws of the states or countries where personal information is collected from visitors. Here are some major laws that your blog’s privacy policy should comply with:
CalOPPA: California Online Privacy Protection Act
The California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA) was enacted in 2003 and amended in 2013. It was the first state law that required that websites have a privacy policy. CalOPPA applies to any person or company in the world whose website obtains personally identifiable information from California consumers. CalOPPA requires that privacy policies state what information is to be collected and with whom it is shared.
CCPA: California Consumer Privacy Act
The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is a state statute intended to enhance privacy rights for those residing in California. The CCPA seeks to provide California residents with the right to:
-Know what personal information is being collected about them
– Know whether personal information is sold or disclosed and to whom
– Refuse the sale of personal data and information
– Access personal information
– Request a business to delete personal information that has been collected about the consumer
GDPR
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a regulation that provides protection of individuals with regard to the processing and transfer of personal information. The European Union implemented the GDPR in 2018 to make people more informed about how businesses secure, use, and gather personal information. If your website or blog obtains personal information from individuals in the European Union, it is important that your privacy policy complies with the GDPR.
What If You Don’t Comply With The Law?
If you fail to provide a privacy policy or comply with privacy laws, you will be at legal risk and subject to civil penalties. Noncompliance with privacy laws such as the CCPA or the GDPR can result in expensive fines that can go up to $20 million.
How To Create A Privacy Policy?
At this point in the article, you may be overwhelmed or concerned. I definitely understand. But don’t worry. I’m about to make your life a lot easier! You can create an easy Privacy Policy with the help of TermsFeed in less than 10 minutes.
What is TermsFeed?
Termsfeed was established in 2012 to help businesses and individuals create privacy policies, disclaimers, terms and conditions, and other legal agreements for their websites. Whether you are a blogger, freelancer, or entrepreneur, Termsfeed can help you easily create a privacy policy for your website. TermsFeed isn’t just your typical legal agreement generator. I love that it customizes and tailors your privacy policy to your business, your audience, and applicable privacy laws. Termsfeed works with attorneys, paralegals, and others involved in the legal industry to put together high-quality legal agreements.
Why use TermsFeed?
It's Fast, Yet Efficient
You can easily create legal agreements in less than 10 minutes. TermsFeed creates your online legal forms immediately without the need of waiting days or even months for a lawyer to cater to your needs. All you have to do is select the form that you want to generate, answer questions about your website, and submit your card information. Easy as that!
Gives Privacy Policy Updates
One of my favorite things about TermsFeed is that it will help your privacy policy stay up to date with constantly changing laws. TermsFeed keeps track of changes to laws and regulations in different countries and states to guarantee that your agreements aren't outdated.
Offers Free Hosting and Linking
TermsFeed also offers free hosting and linking. This means that you won't have to create a separate page on your blog or website or another app screen for your legal agreements. It's even better that the hosting is free of charge!
Offers Customer Support
TermsFeed offers a "Help" section on the website that includes answers to commonly asked questions. If you need help with a more specific problem, you can submit your name and contact information and wait for a response or submit a support ticket.
How Does TermsFeed Work?
Choose Your Customized Policy
TermsFeed values creating customized legal agreements and policies for your website based on your website or app-based business needs. Because your app or website is unique, your legal agreements and policies should be unique too!
Select Your Platforms
TermsFeed customizes the policies differently for websites, mobile apps, Facebook Pages, and so on. Feel free to select the platform you are interested in and TermsFeed will create a custom policy for you.
Answer A Few Questions
Answer a few questions related to your blog and how you use visitors' personal information. This is very easy and usually takes less than 5-8 minutes.
Download Your Policy
TermsFeed hosts your generated privacy policy for free. Luckily for you, you won't need to create a new website page or app screen to display your generated policies to website & app users.
Live Edit Your Policy
TermsFeed allows you to edit your privacy policy as you please. You can download your policy and edit it directly on the website.
As a lawyer, I highly recommend TermsFeed as a way to protect your blog and create a highly customized privacy policy. I hope that this article and TermsFeed make things easier for you, especially as a new blogger or entrepreneur.
Love,
Miracle With Grace