Website Policies
Yes, your website needs a privacy policy, cookie notice and terms of service.
No doubt you’ve noticed the myriad privacy policy, terms & conditions, and disclaimer links on other websites. Yes, you need them on your site too. “But I don’t collect private information on my website… right?” If your website uses a contact form or email newsletter sign up form, yes, this applies to you.
In addition to privacy policies, you'll also need a cookie notice. While this was originally more important for GDPR regulations in Europe, a law in California is being reinterpreted to apply to websites, and lawsuits have been issued even against single owner websites.
The best way to handle website policies is through a tool that monitors legal changes, notifies you, and magically auto-updates your website.
This tool is called Termageddon, and it's included in our managed hosting plans.
Answer questionnaire, generate policies, done.
Laws change all the time, and it’s practically a full time job to keep up with them. Termageddon’s job, that is.
Here's how it works: we create your account and invite you to the dashboard. You answer a couple questionnaires, which determine what your policies should be.
We then embed the code on your site to display those policies, and when a new law is passed, you'll receive an email notification with a question to answer. Your answer will adjust your policies, which automagically update on your website. We can't think of a better way to handle our least favorite part of website management.
We use this service ourselves, so check out the links in the footer to see how it looks.
Policy Software Features:
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service
- Disclaimer
- End User License Agreement (EULA)
- Cookie Policy
- Cookie Consent Notice (provided by Usercentrics)
Termageddon is the only Privacy Policy generator listed as a trusted privacy technology vendor by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP).
Termageddon Policy Setup
- set up dashboard and invite client
- pre-configure initial questionnaire to determine cookie settings
- generate and configure cookie notice pop-up
- create up to 4 policy pages and install code on website
- add page links to website footer
Valued at $10/month, included by default with our managed hosting plan.
website policy/cookie FAQ's
Currently, there are four laws in the United States and the European Union that require most websites that collect personal information to have a Privacy Policy:
- European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR);
- The California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA);
- The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA);
- Nevada’s Revised Statutes Chapter 603A and SB220.
These laws were created to protect the consumers of those states and countries, not the businesses. This means that these laws can apply to businesses outside of those states and countries and may apply to you if you collect the personal information of or enter into transactions with consumers from the European Union, California or Nevada. Fines for violations of privacy laws start at $2,500 per violation (per website visitor).
Over a dozen states have proposed or already are implementing privacy laws to protect the Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of its citizens.
Once we set up your dashboard, you'll receive an email to log in and complete a questionnaire for each policy. Your answers will determine what the policy generates.
When laws are added or updated, you'll receive an email asking a question to determine whether that law applies to your policy. Once answered in the dashboard, the page on your website will automatically update with the new verbiage.
From this article by Termageddon:
The California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) is a privacy law that went into effect in 1994 to protect residents of California from eavesdropping on conversations that took place on landline phones. While “communications” was initially meant to cover phone calls, it has recently been reinterpreted by Courts to cover any communications of an individual with a website. Since CIPA prohibits the eavesdropping of communications without consent, consumers have started suing businesses arguing that the use of cookies, web beacons, pixels, scripts or code that track a user while they are using a website constitutes a violation of CIPA. It is important to note that CIPA applies to anyone that is tracking residents of California through their website, regardless of business size or location.
We install Google Analytics on every website we build, because it's important to benchmark your visitor traffic over time. If you choose to run an ad campaign or take flyers to an event with a QR code, you'll want to track the ROI, which is often connected to how many new website visitors you receive.
This means your website is tracking visitors, so a cookie notice is necessary, even if you're located outside of California.