Do you need a Privacy Policy?

If you have a contact form on your website, you’re collecting personally identifiable information or PII, and that means you need a privacy policy.

Governments around the world have passed privacy laws to protect the PII of its residents. These laws require most websites that collect PII to have a Privacy Policy with specific disclosures. Each of these laws has its own set of unique requirements as to what your Privacy Policy needs to disclose, as well as unique penalties for not complying.

Penalties can be strict too with fines starting at $2,500 per violation per website visitor. 

To make matters more complicated, privacy laws are constantly changing, and new ones are regularly going into effect – meaning a compliant Privacy Policy today, might not be compliant tomorrow. 

What kind of website policies might you need and how will they protect you?

  1. Privacy Policy
    1. May be required under multiple privacy laws
    2. Can apply to businesses of any size and location
    3. Required if using common Google products (Analytics, Maps, reCaptcha, YouTube, etc) and many other third-party tools.
  2. Cookie Policy and cookie consent banner
    1. A Cookie Policy is required under several privacy laws.
    2. A cookie consent banner helps collect consent prior to installing non-essential cookies onto a user’s browser or device, a requirement under several privacy laws.
  3. Terms of Service
    1. Limits your liability for potential copyright infringements and third-party links
    2. Answers commonly asked customer questions
    3. Sets the rules for using your website
  4. Disclaimer
    1. Limits your liability (if applicable)

We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. We do, however, believe that this information is important and want to provide a solution for clients that want to protect themselves.

Some proposed privacy bills include private right of action, meaning those individuals could even sue businesses regardless of their location for not having a compliant privacy policy. And because privacy laws protect people, website owners may need to comply with multiple laws regardless of where their business is located. 

If you have the budget, we recommend hiring a lawyer who focuses on privacy law to write your website policies, monitor privacy laws, and update your policies when the laws change or when new laws go into effect. If you do not have the budget to hire a privacy lawyer for your website policies, we recommend using Termageddon.

Termageddon is a website policies generator that helps you identify which privacy laws apply to you and bases your Privacy Policy on the disclosures you are specifically required to make. 

Termageddon then monitors privacy laws, notifies you of changes, and can even automatically update your Privacy Policy through an embed code on your website to reflect the new disclosures required by changing legislation. 

With Termageddon, you get a full set of policies to protect your business all for just $12 a month or $119 a year – saving you both time and money.

Ask me how you can get set up with Termageddon and protect your business today. -->Request more information about Termageddon.