Updated Tips On Privacy Policy of Merchant Services
Even if you don’t operate a business or commercial website, you could be required by law or contracts you’ve signed to provide a privacy policy.
If your website…
- Collects any personal data (like email addresses for a newsletter subscription)?
- Shows any advertising (Like Google AdSense)?
- Tracks visitor behavior (Like with Google Analytics)?
- Accepts online payments (Like PayPal, Authorize.net or credit cards)
Many jurisdictions require you to have a privacy policy. Otherwise, you could be inviting a civil lawsuit & government intervention or even criminal prosecution in some countries. As well as government requirements, many commercial agreements (such as Google’s AdSense T&Cs) require an up-to-date privacy policy. Of course, these criteria describe almost every website in 2016.
WHAT IS A PRIVACY POLICY, EXACTLY?
A privacy policy is a document that discloses to your website visitors what you will do with any information gathered about them, how you are gathering that information and how the information will be stored, managed and protected.
It fulfills a legal requirement in many countries & jurisdictions to protect your user’s privacy.
PRIVACY POLICY COMPLIANCE
Privacy policies are required by law in many countries & by many other services.
If you collect personal data, process payments, display ads such as Google AdSense or use any online services to operate your website then you likely need to have a privacy policy. Not having an accurate privacy policy can expose your business to liability in a number of different ways, such as expensive lawsuits – or even criminal prosecution in some countries.
Creating a privacy policy for your website can be confusing and time-consuming. Worse, hiring an attorney to do the same thing could cost many $1,000s.There’s no one-size-fits-all policy template (no matter what other advertisers say!). And your policy needs to be customized for your website in order to do the job right.
With Merchant Stronghold, we help you create a privacy policy, you don’t need to hire an expensive lawyer or roll the dice on copying an existing policy.
