Need a little help guys. Now I know I could probably call up my shark...er, uhm...my lawyer...and get him to make me a nice iron-clad policy. And he'll take a chunk out of my bank account to boot!

Any ideas here? I've come across a couple of places on the web that will write them for you, but I can't help thinking they'll come out rather vague. Or that I'll pay a hundred buck and get something worthless.

And what's P3P all about? Is it really that important?

Your privacy policy can in effect be very short and to the point, it doesn't need to be long wordy like some of the ones listed.

Ultimately as long as you address the following it's good to go


1. How do you use the data you collect
2. How do you store the data you collect
3. Cookies and User Sessions
4. Use of Email addresses and news letters
5. Third party access to data

Mine is pretty short and in plain English (not Sharkish ) :

"It's quite simple, we don't sell your info we don't give it away, we only contact you if you sign up for our newsletter or you've made and order that needs a follow up, we have a cookie that tracks the user session on the store and keeps the shopping cart info. If you ask the site to save your password details then another cookie is created that is tracked when you come back to the store. All info is used only by us and will at no time be shared or sold. "

Feel free to copy that

Cheers

Chris

I agree... short, honest and to the point.

Good post Chris.

Thanks a lot Chris! I was concerned that I need a policy that looked...shall we say "offical" - lots of language and such. But you've convinced me to think outside the box - and encouged me to KISS.

At the end of the day your privacy policy will only very rarely get read, I've not had a single email sent about mine so either it's working fine, or no one at all reads it... I tell you, I've never read the privacy policy of any store I've ever bought from...if they have what I want for the price I want then I'm buying

Cheers

Chris

I agree, however some affiliate programs and advertising agencies reguire you to have one. I don't think they ever get read but it's worth having one.

This site (section) is an excellent resource.

https://www.truste.org/bus/pub_privacy.html

However unless it says you can, be careful you don't use content word for word.

Cheers

Chris

I would highly recommend having two "Privacy and Security" Policy's. One which is technical and specific as truste.org discusses. However, also a "plain english" one which outlines your policy in just that... plain english. Then add a link to the bottom "For full details view our complete privacy policy..."

Yes that makes good sense.