Privacy and Terms of Use Policies Need Regular Updating

Check your website terms or risk legal headaches later

By Judy Malmon, J.D. | Reviewed by Canaan Suitt, J.D. | Last updated on November 13, 2023 Featuring practical insights from contributing attorney Gary R. Sorden

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A website’s privacy policy is a legally required statement detailing how you will capture, use, and sell identifiable data you’ve gathered from site visitors. Data can be anything from someone’s name or email address to a social security number or phone number.

Privacy policies are overseen by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as well as some states—significantly, California, whose California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is a leading data privacy law in the United States. In addition, a federal law known as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) restricts the use of personal data obtained from children under age 13.

Aligning Your Company’s Privacy Policies and Practice

The challenge of an updated privacy policy lies in making sure that yours reflects your actual privacy practices. What can make this tricky is that, as you grow your business, your practices can change.

“It’s one of those things that seems like a low-risk endeavor; you kind of forget about it as you start running your business,” says Dallas intellectual property law attorney Gary Sorden, of Cole Schotz law firm. “But it’s not a set-it-and-forget-it. Your privacy policies may be good one day but not good the next day. Usually, this is not the first thing on a CEO’s mind.”

For example, Sorden continues, “If you’re an online marketplace, are you going to sell your data? Are you going to use it for your own internal analytics? And how do you make people aware that you’re doing this? What we’re seeing is more global than a single company, but as data is being collected and sold, there’s more sensitivity about this.”

[Privacy policy is] one of those things that seems like a low-risk endeavor; you kind of forget about it as you start running your business. But it’s not a set-it-and-forget-it. Your privacy policies may be good one day but not good the next day. Usually, this is not the first thing on a CEO’s mind.

Gary R. Sorden

Make Your Privacy Policy Updates Clear

When you do make a privacy policy update and how you plan to use collected data, be sure that you make this clear. Transparency is key. Sorden recommends setting a log-in screen that requires users to click to accept privacy policy changes.

Similarly, your website’s terms of use—which is not technically required but highly recommended—is essentially the contract that your site users enter into with your company by clicking an agreement. One issue with terms of use is that practically no one actually reads the fine print.

Nonetheless, Sorden recommends that his clients carefully consider the contents of their terms of use disclaimer, such as how disputes will be resolved. For example, he asks, “What if you sell something on the internet and payment bounces eight days later? How and where do you want to resolve your conflicts?”

Find an Experienced Data Privacy Lawyer

Rolling out your online business may not be quite as simple as copying and pasting another site’s privacy and terms of use policies. To ensure compliance with legal requirements and that you’re setting things up right, seek legal advice from an experienced business lawyer

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