Auto-Updating Privacy Policies
We Partnered Up With Termageddon
As you may know, we are not lawyers. However, if you have the budget, we recommend hiring a lawyer focusing on privacy laws to write your website policies, monitor privacy laws, and update your policies when the laws change or when new laws go into effect. Unfortunately, most small businesses do not have the budget to hire a privacy lawyer for website policies. So to help our clients in this regard, we partnered with Termageddon to provide auto-updating legal policies.
Termageddon is a comprehensive website policies generator and will update your policies when privacy laws change, or new privacy laws go into effect, helping you stay compliant and avoid privacy-related fines and lawsuits. They do it at a fraction of the cost of a lawyer. Although Termageddon is a technology company (not a legal services provider), it was founded by a privacy and contracts lawyer, and the tool has been recognized as a trusted tech vendor by the most prominent international privacy organization in the world (iapp.org)
Laws & Policies For Website
All four of these auto-updating polices come standard on all hosting plans.
Cookies
Required by law to have in many states in the US and some countries.
Terms Of Service Agreement
Limits the liability of businesses by stating the rules for using the website.
Benefits Of Adhering To Policy Requirements
Peace Of Mind
Know that your website converts customers, increases brand awareness, and keeps your business legally compliant.
Increase Customer Loyalty
You build trust when customers see you go the extra mile in keeping secure and legally compliant.
Setting The Example
Most websites are NOT legally compliant. By leading the pack in website legality, you are putting the best foot forward to clients and search engines.
FAQS
List Of Auto-Updating Policies
Privacy Policy
A Privacy Policy helps website owners comply with privacy laws by providing specific disclosure requirements such as how their website collects, uses, and discloses personally identifiable information and more.
A comprehensive Privacy Policy is required to comply with privacy laws
Today’s modern websites are built to provide a great user experience and motivate prospective customers to reach out and inquire about what you have to offer. This is done through contact forms, website analytics, and more.
Contact forms ask users to submit their ‘name’ and ‘email,’ examples of personally identifiable information. When a website uses analytics, it collects each visitor’s IP address and shares that personally identifiable information with third-party data analytics providers. These are just a few examples of websites collecting and sharing personally identifiable information.
Penalties for non-compliance
The collection of personally identifiable information is regulated under multiple privacy laws. For example, in the US, four state privacy laws can apply to businesses, regardless of location, and fines for non-compliance start at $2,500 per “infringement” (per website visitor). Each of these privacy laws has specific disclosure requirements that must be added to your Privacy Policy to comply.
On top of that, over two dozen privacy bills have been proposed on a state level, each with its own unique disclosure requirements and penalties for not complying. Some of these bills will enable citizens to sue businesses (of any size or location) for collecting their personally identifiable information without an up-to-date and compliant Privacy Policy. Due to the ever-changing nature of privacy laws, we recommend that you not only have a comprehensive Privacy Policy in place but also develop a strategy to keep your policies up to date when these laws are amended or when new laws are implemented.
Google requires your website to have a Privacy Policy
Privacy Policies are required to use popular third-party tools outside the legal requirements. For example, a website utilizing Google Analytics is required by Google to have a Privacy Policy. You can find this requirement within section 7 of Google’s Terms of Service.
A Terms of Service Agreement limits the liability of businesses by stating the rules for using the website.
Example disclosures
third-party links: When a website offers links to third-party websites, a Terms of Service can help explain to users that the business is not responsible if a user clicks those links. So, if a third-party link brings a user to a hacked website, the Terms of Service disclosure can help prevent you from being sued.
DMCA Notice: A Terms of Service agreement can also provide a DMCA notice, which helps prevent a business from being sued by providing contact information in case the website accidentally uses copyrighted material (like images or content).
There are many additional disclosures that a Terms of Service can make, but these two are the most popular and easy ways to protect your website and your business.
Disclaimer
A Disclaimer is a document that helps limit your responsibilities and liabilities for your website in certain circumstances.
Does your website:
Advertise third-party products or services? A Disclaimer will help you protect yourself if a user clicks on the third-party advertisement and gets a virus, is somehow injured by the product or service, or is not happy with the third-party product or service.
Sell or display health products? A Disclaimer will help you protect yourself if the health products do not work as they should, do not deliver the expected results, or if the user gets injured by the health products.
Participate in an affiliate program? An affiliate program is a program whereby you list a particular link on your website. Suppose the user clicks on that link or purchases the products that the link displays, you receive money from the manufacturer of that product. A Disclaimer will help you comply with the affiliate program’s Terms of Service, as most affiliate programs require you to provide a Disclaimer and help keep your user’s trust.
Provide health and fitness advice. A Disclaimer will protect you if the user gets injured after following your health and fitness advice, much like the beginning of those exercise videos you will watch in January next year.
Provide information that others could see as legal advice. A Disclaimer will protect you here by stating that there is no attorney-client relationship here and that this advice is not legal advice, thus protecting you in case something goes wrong.