From the February 2014 Issue of Prestwood eMag

Website Design: Contact Forms and Privacy By G_old_account Renton

Posted 10 years ago on 8/19/2013 Take Away: Creating a Contact Form necessitates the use of a Privacy Policy (normally linked to in the footer). The State of California requires any commercial website or online service collecting information about consumers residing in California to post a privacy policy on the website used to collect information.  Make sure that your estimate includes time for creating a privacy policy as part of the task.   KB102436

Create a Privacy Policy as Part of the task for adding a Contact Form

If a website collects a user’s name, physical address, email address, telephone number, and/or social security number, then a privacy policy must be present.

The following information must be present in the policy:

• What information is being collected and who it may be shared with
• If and how consumers can make changes to information collected by the site
• How the operator of the site informs site users of privacy policy changes
• The effective date of the privacy policy

The policy should be posted on the home page through an icon or hyperlink displayed so that a reasonable person would see it; or through a text link that is written in all capital letters, a larger type than surrounding text, or includes the word privacy.
An operator of a website is only in violation of this subdivision if they fail to add the privacy policy within 30 days of notification.

For more information, please visit oag.ca.gov/privacy/business-privacy.

For a sample privacy policy, please visit necal.bbb.org/sample-privacy.

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KB Post Contributed By Gerald Renton:

Gerald Renton is Australian by birth and has been living in the United States as a resident since 2007.  He has been employed designing professional websites, brochures and business stationary for over ten years. Visit Profile