Writing a Privacy Policy – 5 Tips Not To Miss
December 8, 2009 – 1:16 am, by Irene @ Skalfa
Those of you having a community website inevitably have to deal with processing users information such as name, e-mail, telephone number, sometimes residential address and even billing details. It’s not that everone is happy to share it with a site owner, but almost any registration form requires a user’s private details. In order to gain trust of your existing and potential members from the very start you have to explain (clearly and honestly) what kind of personal information you keep track of, why you need it and how you use it. That’s what a Privacy Policy is needed for: to reassure users that their private data is safe in your hands. Nothing sophisticated of course, but requiring serious attention.
If we speak about a ‘king-size’ business attracting special attention of law-keepers – it is better to hire a professional lawyer for writing a Privacy Policy, as an incorrect privacy statement may seriously affect your business. Otherwise, you can perfectly handle writing a Privacy Policy by yourself. As an option, you can take one of the numerous Privacy Policy samples on the Internet, and adjust it for your website. Just take into account the tips given below.
1) Tell what personal information you collect from your website users, and why.
Your website members have a legal right to know what types of their private data you will have access to. You have to list everything: name, e-mail address, telephone, IP address etc. Then you should explain what you need that data for, and how it is going to be shared within and probably outside your company. Your aim is to assure users that their personal information will not be used in any way abusing your privacy. Give special attention to this part to avoid any possible legal issues.
2) Give an explanation accompanied with certain examples on why members’ information is safe in your hands.
By filling up your Privacy Policy with broad security statements wrapped in technical language you make it look ’sophisticated’, which is not a synonim to ‘good’. Remember that most of your site visitors are not experienced webmasters, and reading something like ‘Security Socket Layer’ and ‘encryption’ they will most likely have a feeling that you are hiding something behind the technicalisms. So, better build your explanation on plain English clearly indicating what measures you take to protect their private correspondence and billing details, and what makes your servers secure. You should also give a try to explaining special terms, but don’t go too deep though. Being brief and clear is a key point.
3) Give the site members access to viewing and editing their private details.
Having an option to access and change the personal information at any moment site users feel more confident about sharing their personal details with you. So you should tell where and how they can do this, and how editing profile info might influence their membership status and profile page availability.
4) Show your members a ‘way out’.
In other words, specify how they will be able to terminate their site membership in case of being dissatisfied with your services,
or due to any other reason. It is always sad to lose customers, no doubts. But if you give users an option to leave whenever they want, and with no headache – they will definitely feel more relaxed about subscribing for your service. From your part it is required to indicate where and how they can delete a profile or unsubscribe from mass-mailing, and what will happen to their private data after they are no longer on your team. Remember that most site visitors would read your Privacy Policy just for finding that out.
5) Keep your site member aware of possible Privacy Policy updates.
Some companies practice periodical Privacy Policy revising that results in minor or global changes. If you have plans for such occasional or regular updates – let your members know by including a notification that would sound like: ‘Our Privacy Policy is revised on a regular basis, so please check for updates’.
My final advice is – make your Privacy Policy honest and easy to understand. This will help you gain trust of your site users, and will give them a good feeling about your business.
I hope this information will be helpful for SkaDate community and dating script customers, and for those only thinking to start their own online dating business.
Best wishes,
Irene
Image sources: destateparks.com, mistera.co.uk, elitewebmail.com
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