Important Points for Your Online Privacy Policy

Your privacy policy is an extremely important document and it has a direct influence on your success as a business owner. It is important for you to have one and to share it with others to demonstrate your integrity.

Transparency is critical

You owe it to your online business connections to be transparent with what your policies are and how they will affect them if they decide to interact with you in business in some way. It is also extremely important that you notify your online connections of important information as it occurs (and if, of course, it is relevant) and that you offer them a way to opt-out if they should choose to do that.

The following are important points to emphasize in your privacy policy, if you haven’t covered them already:

• When giving notice: When notifying your connections (that includes prospective and already-existing clients) about how you will be gathering and using information about them, you must be very clear, comprehensible and transparent. There should be nothing left to doubt in their minds. You should be sure to tell them who you intend to share their information with and ensure that they can get in touch with you easily, if they would like to do that.
• Your customers have a choice: It is extremely important that you understand that your online connections have a choice when it comes to sharing their information and that it is perfectly acceptable if they choose not to do so. It is possible that they may not be comfortable with your sharing their information with third parties and/or used in a way that is not synergistic with the way in which the content was originally supposed to be used. This is where your online connections may choose to opt-out.
• The integrity of the data: It is critical that your data is clean (always). It is clean, that means that it is complete, up-to-date, dependable and accurate.
• The importance of compliance: It is important for you to make your online connections understand that you are being consistently compliant with all of the regulations and laws that protect people and businesses. You also need to communicate clearly that will respect every person who does not wish to be contacted and that your privacy policy includes that and does not deviate from it. It is a regular part of your practice.
• Keeping your online connections secure: It is critical that you take all necessary measures to guard against misconduct in the form of misuse of the data of your online connections, use without permission, altering the data in any way, disclosing the information, or destroying the information.

Having a privacy policy that protects your online connections has many advantages in addition to the ones that have been mentioned here already. First of all, it adds to an improved electronic environment on the Web and it protects everyone who has any business to the Internet. You are creating a transparent environment that gives people a sense of confidence, security and trust. It takes away some of the stress that may be present otherwise. As technology advances, privacy policies are being revised to fit the technical environment. What might have applied some time ago may no longer be relevant at this point.

Reviewing current privacy practices

Assuming that you already have policy practice in place, you should take a long, hard look at it to determine if it is relevant as is or if it needs to be revised. You should be able to determine what needs to be done quite easily. It is also possible that the laws that existed when you wrote the policy have either changed or new (and more relevant) laws may now be in effect. In any case, it bears close, periodic examination to make sure that you are always up to date.

Conclusion

Your privacy policy is critical to the success of your business. Make sure that your policy truly applies to your business and make sure that your online connections are comfortable with what you need from them. If you work together and everyone agrees, you will be able to go the distance with your business and success will be yours.

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