New Affiliate Discoveries

Does your company or internet marketing web page have a privacy policy? Many third party ad servers require a prominently displayed privacy policy on your home page. An excerpt from Commission Junction’s Terms of Service is show here:

(e) Privacy. You must conspicuously post Your privacy policy on Your Web site and otherwise make it available to all Visitors. Your privacy policy must comply with all laws and regulations regarding the privacy of Visitor information, be commercially reasonable, and fully and accurately disclose Your collection and use of Visitor information. You must fully and accurately disclose Your use of third party technology, including CJ’s tracking technology, use of cookies and options for discontinuing use of such cookies.

If you are serving ads from Commision Junction and do not have a privacy policy, you may be violating your terms of service and could have your account suspended.

Google also values user’s privacy. I have read in GoogleMoneyPro, a downloadable e-book by Certified AdWords Professional Steven Holdaway, that when creating a “quality score” for Google AdWords keywords, the algorithm takes into account whether or not the landing page has a privacy policy. So if you are targeting your own pages, you can increase your quality score and thus lower your click through rates by displaying a privacy policy of your own on your home page.

According to the Better Business Bureau:

Telling your customers how you will protect their privacy online is essential in today’s business environment. By publishing an easy-to-understand privacy policy on your Web site, you can foster a climate of trust and encourage visitors to feel comfortable doing business with you. A good privacy policy provides users with a clear understanding of how you collect information and how you use (or don’t use) the information they provide at your site.

The Better Business Bureau believes all responsible businesses should clearly post a privacy policy and show how you will be held accountable for following that policy. But how do you go about doing that? A number of organizations – including the government – have developed guidelines, enforcement programs and privacy policy generators to make this as easy as possible.

And finally, this quote from the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development underscores why, as an internet marketer hoping to generate income from online sales, you absolutely must create and display a policy of your own:

Internet research has repeatedly shown that many consumers are reluctant to engage in electronic transactions because of concerns about the privacy of their personal data. Privacy policies and accurate public statements outlining such policies are a vital step towards encouraging openness and trust in electronic commerce among visitors to Web sites. They can help visitors to make informed choices about entrusting an organisation with personal data and doing business with it.

Several online privacy policy generators exist, check out these two automated generators that you can use to get started. It’s easy to take the resulting HTML and simply make edits as your policy changes, and as you understand more about various aspects of user privacy.

OECD Privacy Statement Generator
The Direct Marketing Association Privacy Policy Generatorhttp://www.the-dma.org/privacy/creating.shtml

For more reading check out the following links.
Study: Search Engine Privacy Policies Improving

Safe Harbor: Aligning the privacy policies of the US and the EU

Create an Online Privacy Policy

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