Protect Your Website – and Your Business – from Fines or Lawsuits
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Today I want to talk about something vital yet often overlooked: Privacy Policies, Terms of Service, Cookie Policies, and consents. If that sounds like the least exciting part of running a website, you’re not wrong—but it’s incredibly important.
Why You Need to Care About Website Policies
1. Your website is collecting (and sharing) personal information.
Every time someone fills out a contact form on your website, you’re collecting their personal information, like names and email addresses, and sharing it with your email provider. Even if you’re not actively collecting data, your website might still be gathering IP addresses for security or analytics purposes.
2. Websites require a Privacy Policy.
Privacy laws regulate how personal information like names, emails, and IP addresses are handled. And because your website can be accessed from anywhere in the world, you may be subject to multiple privacy laws, each with specific disclosure requirements.
Having a Privacy Policy isn’t just a formality anymore – it’s legally required. And it’s not just about having one; it needs to include specific details that comply with all the laws that apply to your site.
3. Non-compliance is costly.
Ignoring privacy laws could cost you big time. Fines for non-compliance start at $2,500 per affected visitor. Even with a modest number of visitors, those fines can quickly add up.
And here’s the kicker: more privacy laws are on the way. By 2025, eight new laws are expected to go into effect, adding even more complexity to staying compliant.
What’s the Solution?
If you already have an attorney handling your website policies, fantastic! Having a legal expert monitor and update your policies is the gold standard.
For those looking for a more affordable solution, let me introduce Termageddon.
Why I Recommend Termageddon
Termageddon is a tool that generates custom website policies, founded by a licensed attorney who also serves as the Chair of the American Bar Association’s ePrivacy Committee. It includes Privacy Policies, Cookie Policies and consent banners, Terms of Service, and more.
Here’s what makes it stand out:
- Custom Compliance: It identifies which laws apply to your site and ensures your policies meet those requirements.
- Auto-Updates: As laws change or new ones take effect, Termageddon updates your policies automatically, saving you the headache of doing it manually.
- Peace of Mind: You’ll get notifications about changes and can rest easy knowing your site stays compliant over time.
I use Termageddon for my own websites because it’s reliable, affordable, and keeps me and my visitors protected.
Special Black Friday Deal
Normally, Termageddon is a sound investment at $119 per year. But until Wednesday, December 4, you can get 30% off your first payment and enjoy a complimentary onboarding session to make setup a breeze.
Isn’t your peace of mind worth that?
Click here to sign up for Termageddon.
Photo by zimmytws / Depositphotos
Janet Barclay
I eliminate stress for my clients by hosting, monitoring, and maintaining their WordPress sites so they don’t have to worry about security, downtime or performance issues. When I’m away from my desk, I enjoy reading, photography, cooking, watching movies, drinking tea, and spending time with my family.
This is a great tip, Janet. Thank you. Recently, I’ve been fielding many inquiries from people wanting to do guest posts on my website. I turned them all down because I don’t have good set policies for these guest posts set up. I will explore this further.
That’s a different type of policy, but I’m glad I sparked your interest, Diana. It’s good to have policies around guest bloggers to ensure you maintain the quality and integrity of your blog.
Thanks for the suggestion of Termageddon. I’ll look into it.
Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions!
This is excellent information. I just visited your website to view your privacy policy. I’ll admit that it feels intimidating. But based on what you said, it sounds like having it is important from a legal standpoint. Thank you for sharing Termageddon as an option.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to write it myself – I’d never have known what to include or what to say about it!
Great reminder to revisit this for bloggers. I never heard of Termageddon, I will check it out.
I think many of your small business clients could benefit from it!
Well, I have a privacy policy that you helped me set up, but after reading this, I’m wondering if I need to do more? I’ll have to check out this resource. It’s always something!
Do check it out! It’s crazy how many different laws there are.
I wish I had known about Termaggedon back when GDPR went into effect. I knew it only applied in Europe, but I have blog readers there and occasionally someone in the EU purchases one of my ebooks, so I made it a point to complay with GDPR without a real sense of what I was doing. I eventually found some great templates and combined them to make my own privacy policy, which (like my blog posts) is long-winded, but broken down by subject and full of explanatory links. I’ve made tweaks to my privacy policy since then, but now that you’ve alerted us to there being so many more requirements in 2025, I’ll be on the alert! Thank you!
I suspect if I’d had Termaggedon back then, I would not have found privacy to be such a daunting subject. (On the plus side, other that names and emails for the blog and mostly defunct newsletter, I don’t collect much. I purposely use a third-party payment processor so as not to be exposed to people’s private financial information. But my policy does link to all the various companies I use to protect myself from spam, allow people to share to social media, etc.) Thanks for sharing Termageddon with us!
I’ve never looked at your Privacy Policy before (does anyone do that when reading a blog?) but I just did and I’m pretty impressed with what you’ve done. Of course, I’m not a lawyer so my opinion isn’t worth a lot. 😀