In the last couple of months since May 25, 2018, businesses, bloggers, online entrepreneurs, including everyone that has got anything to do with the internet have been scrambling to update their website policies to comply with the new GDPR regulations in Europe.
This is good news and bad news – good news to internet users as the new rules compels companies to be more transparent regarding why they solicit personal data from users, how their data is used, and they, that is, the user has the right to demand a full closure of any data organizations have about them.
The new regulation, though passed in the EU, pretty much affects you regardless of where you are based, as long as you collect any bit of an EU citizen’s data.
The bad news, however, is that organizations would have to make far-reaching changes to their data collection and handling process – they have to tell the user upfront what and why they need their data, get an explicit permission from the user before attempting to collect their data – with the attendant cost and complexity of the whole process.
Honestly, these are the early days for the new laws – there are so many things not entirely understood yet; this means, most online businesses are still struggling to determine what needs updating.
However, to ease your task of creating and updating the relevant website policies you need to stay compliant, we introduce you WebsitePolicies, an online service for creating policies with a couple of clicks, designed to offer you the peace of mind you need to focus on the important aspects of your business.
Before we go on to talk about this service, let’s see why your website needs website policies in the first place.
Why Your Website Needs Policy Pages
Regardless of the type of website you have – a personal blog, business website – you need website policies on each, and every one of them – Google wants you to have them; today the new GDPR regulations demands you have them.
The popular ones are the Private policy, Terms of Services, refund policies, and disclaimers.
So why should you have website policies?
Well, the number one and most important reason is that it builds trust with your site visitors.
When a new visitor lands on your website for the first time and sees a privacy policy, they unconsciously consider your site safe and trustworthy, hence, they are a bit more open to share their personal details with you, play, or even buy from you.
Secondly, it is the law. Federal and State laws including international laws like the new GDPR regulations in Europe compels website owners to have a privacy policy that explains in clear terms what personal data you collect from them and what you do with it.
A policy like the Terms of Service can help you limit your legal liability and protect your intellectual property.
It literally sets the expectations for both the user and you. It should communicate clearly how you expect every visitor to behave while also letting them know what to expect from you.
This could come in handy when getting sued or seeking redress for damages arising from the use of your services.
Now that you know why you need to build those policy pages, the next step would be to actually write and create them.
The hassle to wrap your head around all the legal terms and the fear that you may leave out important details has a price and of course, you’re no legal expert. So what do you do?
Introducing WebsitePolicies.com
Imagine outsourcing your website policies to expert lawyers at a next to nothing one time fees…that’s actually the reason why WebsitePolicies was built.
All you have to do is visit www.websitepolicies.com, select the appropriate category, fill in a simple form, and boom your website policies would be ready for download and immediate use on your site.
What exactly is WebsitePolicies?
WebsitePolicies is an attorney-level legal policy generator for your website. The types of policies you could generate with the tool are:
- A privacy policy
- A disclaimer
- A terms and conditions of service page
- A refund policy
The most significant benefit of this service is that you will get customized website policies by experts within minutes while also saving a ton of money.
WebsitePolicies is entirely free to use for non-commercial and personal use. However, you only get to pay a one-time fee of $14.95 for commercial purpose policies.
The premium services suitable for commercial use include additional legal disclosures that are not available with the free plan.
A step by step guide on how to create website policies
Step 1:
To create the policies you need for your website, using the online tool, head over to the site and click on the “GET STARTED” button to launch the wizard.
Step 2:
You would then be asked what you’d like to create. Select the type of policy you’d need help with.
For this case, let me walk you through the entire process of creating a privacy policy. So, click on the “Create privacy policy.”
Step 3
A new page with a simple form loads. You would then be prompted to select your location from a drop-down of countries.
A second drop down prompts you to select your state, province, or region depending on your country.
From here, it’s a matter of selecting the right values and inputting your website’s name and URL.
Truthfully, answer whether your website is for commercial or personal purposes, then, click “Next.”
Keep in mind that if you selected the “commercial purposes” option, you’d be charged a one-time fee of $14.95(follow this link for 10% off). That’s right, you don’t have to pay any monthly fees for such a service. This premium service includes additional features like:
- Suitable policies for commercial use
- Instant download
- Lifetime access to all your policies
- Automatic notifications on updates
Step 4
In the next section, you’d be asked a series of questions focused on the users and content of your website.
Ensure to answer the questions related to your audience, technologies, and scripts that you might use on your site, whether you do you collect personal data or not and if you send out emails to your users.
If you’ll go the “personal use” route, you’ll notice that some questions are starred – this indicates they are only available for premium users.
Once you’ve answered all the questions here, click “next.”
Step 5
On the next section, you will be asked whether you sell any product or services on the website.
Note that this section is only available to the paid version. If you selected the free plan, click “next” to go to the next section.
Step 6
The next page prompts you to specify how you’d like to inform your users of any updates, data breaches, request for information, etc.
Click “next” once you are done.
Step 7
Confirm you’ve read the terms and conditions to use WebsitePolicies, input your email and you’re all set.
Check the email you entered to see the password to create an account to view all your policies – this for free users – and also download the policy you’ve just created – available only for premium users.
You can now log into your dashboard with the automated password sent to you and change them if you so desired.
View all your policies and the date created on the My Policies page – you can also toggle between HTML, formatted, plain text mode.
Now just create a privacy page on your website copy and paste it or if you prefer, link the policy from WebsitePolicies to your site and let them host it for you.
So you now know how to create a policy for your website in a couple of simple steps. You can follow the same procedure to build other policies as well, though you would be asked slightly different questions – that’s a good sign, indicating the level of personalization the generator is making use of, to create the tailor-made pages for you.
Free vs Pro
The tool is designed to work for any website and comes with a freemium model. The free version covers almost every legal aspect of an agreement and you can use it for your non-commercial and personal projects, whether it’s a website or a mobile app. However, there are a few important missing pieces you can’t add to a free-generated document.
Luckily for you, the paid one does come with them. If you’re wondering what these are all about, well, they cover aspects related to:
- targeted advertising (via Google, Facebook, etc) to users based on collected data – aka remarketing
- affiliate links to products or services
- selling products or services on the website
So if you consider your project as being non-commercial or personal but it tackles any of the above points, think again 🙂
Final thoughts
WebsitePolicies offers a quick yet straightforward tool to navigate the complex world of policies with all the legal terms and jargons.
The best part is that you can generate the policies you need for free. Plus, WebsitePolicies can and will be hosting the pages on their servers if you want, so you don’t have to spend time creating new pages on your website and formatting the content. Pretty neat!
