Media & Entertainment Law

Running a website or blog? You?d better have a Privacy Policy

By Gordon Firemark

Every Website operator (including bloggers)  should have a privacy policy in place to protect him/herself, and to clearly define the relationship with the website?s visitors, customers and others.  Without a carefully crafted privacy policy, a site-operator can be exposed to significant liability.  Unfortunately, not all privacy policies are created equal, and simply cutting-and-pasting from another site is risky business.

WHAT IS A PRIVACY POLICY & WHY DO I NEED ONE?

A privacy policy is a legal notice given by the operator of a website to provide information about the operator?s use of personally identifiable  information gathered from/about the site?s visitors.

Although there?s no specific federal statute governing the establishment of privacy policies, a number of states have implemented statutory and/or regulatory approaches to the gathering, use and dissemination of personally identifiable information.  Moreover, the FTC has pursued action against website operators for unauthorized use of personally identifiable information about their site?s users. (more…)

Full post as published by Entertainment Law Update on September 03, 2008 (boomark / email).