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How-to

– 10 min read –

August 20, 2019

How to create a privacy policy and terms of use

The privacy policy and terms of use of the site are prescribed provisions on the protection of personal information, dispute resolution, intellectual property right. For the absence of a policy on the site is the responsibility of the company.

What is a privacy policy and terms of use

On each resource, you must post a privacy policy and terms of use of the site. These documents add key points related to collecting personal information about project users and terms of use.

These documents are necessary to determine the conditions of the legal responsibility of the website owners in case of non-compliance with legislation. As a rule, links to the pages with a privacy policy and terms of use of the site are placed in the basement of the resource so that you can quickly navigate to them from each section of the resource.

In the website's terms of use, it is stated that using the resource, the visitor automatically agrees with the provisions of this document. Unlike the privacy policy, this document is not legally binding, but it is important for clarifying all the nuances of using the resource.

The following information must be added to the website terms of use:

The rules to be followed when using the site.

To contribute the right to block access to a site, abusing the use of the resource, indicating which actions lead to this.

To prescribe the rules for ordering, delivering, and paying for products for legal protection of the store. You must also specify the terms of return and exchange of purchased products.

To provide information on copyright protection — terms of use and copying of materials posted on the site:

You need to make individual rules for the use of the resource in accordance with the specifics of the project. For example, a dating site will have completely different rules than a resource intended for sharing photos. Therefore, it is not recommended to copy all terms of use from the other sites.

You can add brief information about the processing of personal information in the website's terms of use. Example:

The reasons why the site needs the terms of use

Prevention of abuse
This point is particularly important for the resources on which users interact with each other. Visitors will not want to use the site where you can insult or spam with impunity. Without the specified item in the rules, site administrators do not have the authority to block visitors who behave inappropriately.

Protection of your own content
To emphasize the ownership of the company's logo, site design, posted articles and images, you must specify the illegality of their appropriation and use without the written permission of the owner of intellectual property.

Disclaimer
Information should be posted that the company is not legally responsible for all damages associated with the use of the site, and users assume all possible risks.

Information on the territory of possible legal proceedings
It is necessary to specify the location of the court in which the legal resolution of disputes will take place.

Website Privacy Policy Requirements

Use language understandable for users, avoid specific terms.

You can include the company's mission in the policy, for example: "We work to provide our customers with a high level of service at affordable prices."

Include in the policy only the most important information that visitors need to understand how their confidential information is processed. The final text should not be too long.

You can not hide from the visitors some information about the use of their data. Everything should be precisely and clearly painted so that users know exactly what they agree with after reading. Visitors should not have doubts and distrust of the project after reading the privacy policy.

Examine the privacy policies posted on competitor sites. Given the same scope, their documents will be the appropriate basis for creating their own policies.

Specify in the policy what data about users and for what purposes are collected. You must provide information about the provider that is used for safe storage of confidential data.

If information is transmitted to third parties, it is imperative that you inform the users, explaining why this is necessary.

Add information about the storage of cookies, which are used to identify customers, for example, to display their name and other registration data when they visit the site again.

Mark the information about the responsibility for non-compliance with the items of the policy — the terms of the contract that the user concludes with the resource owners must be indicated by clicking on the appropriate button.

Irresponsible attitude to the clients' personal information may entail lawsuits, even if it is not spelled out in the policy.

Indicate whether there is a possibility that the business will be sold, and personal information will be transferred to another owner who can use it for any purpose.

Add the date of the last policy update, and also indicate whether it will be updated in the future.

In the policy of online stores, you need to specify how the company protects personal payment information that is used when paying for products by customers: bank card numbers and settlement accounts in banks.

Add information about how to unsubscribe from unnecessary services and remove personal data from the resource.

How to make a privacy policy automatically

There are generators of this document in the network that you can use to create a policy easily.

Freeprivacypolicy.com

The service freeprivacypolicy.com allows you to create a privacy policy and the processing of user data in accordance with the requirements of legislation. It creates different policies depending on whether the website is commercial:

Select the type of the site and fill out the data on the resource name, domain, city, and then click "Next step", and obtain a document that you can download and use on your own site:

App.privacypolicies.com

The tool app.privacypolicies.com solves a similar problem, allowing to create a personal data processing policy. As a result, app.privacypolicies.com creates a policy in accordance with the legislation.

Flexible settings are available in this service, you can select a list of data collected on the site and the purpose of using this information:

Fill in the information about the site and select the necessary items:

As a result, the tool generates a sample privacy policy.

ProfiSet

If the site interacts with customers from the EU, you need to add a data processing policy in accordance with the new regulation of the GDPR, adopted on May 25, 2018. Otherwise, business owners face fines of up to 20 million euros. To create such a policy, the online generator ProfiSet will be suitable:

After filling in the fields, click "Generate security policy":

Get the text of the policy for copying and posting on the site:

WordPress plugin "WP AutoTerms: GDPR Privacy Policy, Cookie Consent Banner, Terms & Conditions

For websites, that are created using WordPress, you can also use plugins. For example, a plugin "WP AutoTerms: GDPR Privacy Policy, Cookie Consent Banner, Terms & Conditions":

This plugin informs website visitors about the use of cookies, and also adds consent for personal data processing under the contact form. The policy generated by the plugin complies with Russian law.

Conclusion

Privacy policy and terms of use are important documents that must be present on each resource. They prescribe information regulating the conditions of relations between the client and the company, the procedure for providing services, storage, and transfer to third parties of users personal information.

It is important to create easy-to-read documents that provide the full information necessary for the client to make decisions about using the site and transferring their data.

This article is a part of Serpstat's Checklist tool

Checklist is a ready-to-do list that helps to keep reporting of the work progress on a specific project. The tool contains templates with an extensive list of project development parameters where you can also add your own items and plans.

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