In the past few years we’ve experienced a lot of new legal regulations surrounding Web sites and internet marketing. To ensure that your company and Web site stays up to date the ever-changing compliance requirements, we recommend consulting with an expert that can review your site or internet marketing initiatives. In the meantime, the 5 following items should be reviewed—they may give you an idea of where your company stands with compliance—Beware, sometimes the cost of failing to comply is veryyyy high!
- Check your Blog: The Communications Decency Act (CDA) protects the host of a blog in the event of defamatory posts by its users/readers. Regardless, you should always attempt to continually monitor posts, require a post approval before anything goes live, and erase anything inappropriate from your company’s site, as it reflects badly upon your organization for hosting such content. If your company and/or blogger is responsible for the defamatory content though, you are NOT protected by CDA Section 230.
- Privacy Policies: In 2010, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) expressed its disapproval of long, illegible, privacy policies. Policies must now be to the point, clear, and readable—no fine print!
- Uses of Personal Information: If you collect a site visitor’s personal information for one promotion and/or purpose and then use that person’s information for another campaign, or even worse, another company, you’re going to get in trouble! As of 2011, FTC established several new details surrounding the use of personal information.
- Advertising: Behavioral advertising, to be exact. In 2011, FTC announced a new policy requiring prior notice and an opt-out for the collection of data online, as it relates to behavioral advertising. For example, behavioral ads are targeted at certain users based on how they browse the internet and what they are interested in. If your site is collecting data based on users’ behaviors and online actions, you must include a full disclosure in your privacy policy.
- Geographic Data: If your Web site collections geographic locations of users based on GPS, you need to disclose that in your privacy policy. Include why you are collecting the data, what exactly is being collected, and its specific purpose.
Chief Internet Marketer is NOT a legal consultant, but we want to provide our readers with this brief information as a start in ensuring your Web site is compliant. Please rely on a legal expert, or contact the FTC, for all items in question.