Privacy Notice
Information
This page is designed to help
businesses, especially BBBOnLine Reliability seal holders, to
create an online privacy notice for use on the web. The Code of Online
Business Practices requires that BBBOnLine Reliability seal
holders have some sort of privacy notice on their website. Each notice
must be based on the following five elements:
- Notice (what personal information is being collected on
the site) - Choice (what options the customer has about
how/whether her data is collected and used) - Access (how a customer can see what data has been
collected and change/correct it if necessary) - Security (state how any data that is collected is
stored/protected) - Redress (what customer can do if privacy policy is
not met)
This webpage will attempt to give some resources to use in
developing your privacy notice. Whatever final notice you develop is up
to you, and will be your responsibility to maintain. The Better
Business Bureau does not recommend any one set of privacy practices, nor
any single privacy notice.
Below is a sample privacy notice that you may want to use as a
guide for your privacy notice. Note that there is a place for your
company name or URL in the first paragraph, and a place for your phone
number and email address in the last paragraph. Please make sure to
personalize these. DO NOT simply cut-and-paste this policy as
is.
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You can print or save the above privacy policy to your
computer here: Download
sample privacy policy (MS Word document)
The above notice (or policy) probably does not describe your
privacy practices exactly. You need to personalize your statement to
fit your business practices. Here are some sample clauses that you can
use to help describe other specific practices that fit your business
model.
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You can print or save the above privacy policy to your
computer here: Download
Optional Clauses (MS Word document)
Other sources of information on creating privacy policies
include:
- Understanding
Privacy’s site provides guidance on why online privacy is important
and how businesses can create policies that fit their practices. See
especially the section on Create
an Online Privacy Policy . - The Center
for Democracy and Technology has guidance to help businesses create
a privacy policy. - The Direct Marketing Association has a “privacy policy
generator“. This tool is oriented towards companies that practice
direct mail marketing, but can be used by a wide variety of businesses. - Finally, for the global-looking companies among
your membership, the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and
Development (the “OECD”, based in England), has a privacy policy
generator. OECD is an international business whose 29 member
countries have endorsed this privacy policy generator.