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Website Privacy Policy Drafting Tips

Welcome to Internet Law Radio.  I am Attorney Enrico Schaefer and I specialize in internet law, we represent clients across the world on a variety of internet legal issues, things that arise on the web, and we handle clients from website operators on through to people who are interacting with websites.  Today, we’re talking about privacy policy drafting and what needs to be included in a privacy policy on a particular website, typically found in the terms of service (TOS) or terms of use (TOU) area of a website. 

Play: Website Privacy Policy Drafting Tips
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With: Enrico Schaefer

Sponsored by: Traverse Internet Law

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Essentially, you want to think of a privacy policy for a website as legal document which not only protects the website owner, but also provides notice and clarity and transparency to the website visitors, to the people that come to that website, so that they can feel safe and secure about how their information, how their data is being used by the website operator.  So, essentially, a privacy policy is a statement that discloses to the users the way information is going to be gathered, the way information is going to be used, how client or customer data is going to be stored and variety of related issues. 

Drafting a Privacy Policy for a Website

Welcome to Internet Law Radio.  My name is Attorney Enrico Schaefer.  I specialize in internet law.  Other attorneys and I at Traverse Legal understand technology, the internet, the web and we specialize in internet law issues.  Today, we’re going to be talking about privacy policies.  Every website needs a privacy policy, and we draft a lot of privacy policies for clients who are launching new websites or looking to audit their current website or upgrade their website in some way. 

Now, a lot of folks out there will simply go and cut and paste a third party privacy policy and put it onto their own website.  Well, this is a relatively common occurrence, it is really desolution to what could be a serious problem.   In order to effectively draft a privacy policy for your website, the first thing an internet law attorney is going to need to do is understand your business model.  There are a lot of variables that go into a well drafted privacy policy.  Let me just give you some examples so you can understand the types of issues that need to be addressed in your policy for your website. 

The first thing you need to understand is that a privacy policy is driven in several parts.  The first is that many states and federal governments, The United States, The UK, etc. have specific privacy requirements that you must comply with.  So, drafting an effective policy is a compliance issues first and foremost.

Privacy Policy Lawyers | Safe Harbor Certification: More Than A Privacy Policy

If your company collects personally identifiable information from Internet users via a website, you should have a privacy policy.  However, simply copying and pasting the numerous privacy policies that exist today may not be enough to protect your business.  In fact, if your business has not implemented the proper online privacy protections, you may face liability, especially when dealing with individuals and business located outside the United States.

US-Based Company Privacy Policies May Not Comply With EU Privacy Laws

Many United States Companies with high-traffic web sites do considerable business in the European Union. Few US companies understand and appreciate that privacy laws are much stricter in the EU than the US. Privacy Policies need to cover both US privacy laws, as well as EU privacy laws.