Or is it? I've never used or read one (until recently). People are just going to use the site or not, aren't they?? I'd appreciate any comments on the value of having a Privacy Policy and how they help the website owner or end user. Thank you
It's required for Google Adsense, and if you are collecting any information from your visitors (like their IP address - if you have any stat tracking software installed) you need a Privacy Policy. There's many more reasons, those are just the most common.
Every web site needs a Privacy Policy describing the types of information it collects, how it is used, how it is shared, how it is stored and how it is protected. While there is currently no Federal law directly regulating the Privacy Policy, the regulations contained in other laws (i.e. COPPA, HIPPA, etc.) affect your web site. It’s important to realize that the internet is still very new in relative terms, leaving lawmakers and courts scrambling to catch up. States like California have taken it upon themselves to pass state laws concerning privacy, but the internet is larger than a single state, and I expect to see federal regulation concerning Privacy Policies in the months and years ahead.
A lot of users have come to expect to see privacy policies from the sites that they frequent. Even though sometimes it is just a formality it is something that some users will notice if it's missing.
I look for privacy policy and TOS on all sites. Especially if it is a program trying to get you to sign up. NO Privacy and or TOS and it is RED flagged by me as a do not join.
As others have already noted, if you are serving AdSense ads Google requires that you have a privacy policy which contains specific provisions, since Google will record information from users who click on the ads. Otherwise, if you have a purely informational site and record NO user-inputted information, few users probably care whether you have a privacy policy. Of course, if providing content is all you do, it is very easy to craft a simple privacy policy that just covers a few basic items like cookies, server logs, external links, etc... Is it important to the website owner or the user? It depends on the nature of the site and whether any personal information is obtained from the user. The real question is that since a good privacy policy is fairly simple to put together, why would anyone who is serious about their website NOT have a privacy policy?
Yes, it is amazing how all sites have the info & few users or site owners truly know the full implications of why the privacy statement is required. Google ad$sence requires it.
If a privacy statement is absent or a TOS not present on the site, the site has zero credibility in my eyes.
Aside from the Google Adsense requirement, many site visitors are concerned about the resale of their information without their consent for newsletters, free offers and others on squeeze pages. I look for the privacy policy and read it prior to sign-up for a news letter. I agree with 11114444 that a site is not credible (my view) without a PP today.
Privacy Policy should be added because these details your company's views and procedures on the information collected from visitors.
A privacy policy is one of the most important documents on any website. It details your company's views and procedures on the information collected from visitors. Although a privacy policy is technically a legal document, great effort should be made to craft a document that is both accurate and easy to understand, obscuring hidden clauses in reams of text is not acceptable.
It doest matter with Adsense only it is also applicable to every websites which collects general information of users!!
It's more like a formality than a necessity. I have a 2 years old domain and I have yet to see the first hit on my privacy policy apart from bots!