To many owners of small websites, the question of whether they are required to have privacy policy is not one that is not considered. They may think, “We’re so small, we don’t need a privacy policy or any of the other legal mumbo jumbo that some sites have.”
If you own a website that has no contact form or any other way to contact you (such as an email link), no Google Analytics or Google Ads, no Amazon affiliate links, no online tip jar, and no mailing list, you may be off the hook. But if you do have any of those, or any similar thing installed on your website, you almost certainly need to have a privacy policy on your site, linked in a way that is easy to find. Why?
The reason is that if you have any feature on your website that collects email addresses for any reason, you are collecting personally identifiable information. You must provide a way for people to opt of the collection of their information.
These regulations are not in place just to make life hard for small website owners. Place yourself on the other side of the fence for a second and ask yourself if you would appreciate knowing what happens to the information you type into online forms.
The rules and regulations are there to protect consumers, just like you are when you visit other sites.
You may need a privacy policy
Website owners should not overlook privacy policies even if they are very small and think they’ll never have a broad audience. There are laws in place concerning the responsibilities of website owners in Europe and many other countries. There are laws being proposed in several states that dictate a number of rules surrounding the collection of personal data belonging to anyone who is a resident of that state, regardless where the website that resident visits is based. In some cases, substantial fines exist or are being proposed.
Further, there are many owners of small websites who don’t know that Google requires a privacy policy on any site that uses Google Analytics to track their traffic. Other companies have similar rules.
If you have decided not to include a privacy policy on your website because you’ve seen some of the mile-long policies on larger websites and you think you could never write one on your nor afford to pay an attorney to write one, there are ways to have a legally acceptable and continuously updated policy on your site without breaking your bank.
Contact us if you need a privacy policy. We’re not attorneys, so we depend on Termageddon to help us with our privacy policies. Click here to see how they can help you get the policies you need to legally protect yourself and your website.
