Privacy Policies

I recently attended a Seminar about Hacking and how it relates to Small Business Owners. It was presented by a very knowledgeable Attorney specializing in Websites, Credit Card Security and Hacking.

Each state is different and even a purchasing customer residing out of your state can have an impact on your liability.

His primary focus was on the “Privacy Page” of a website and keeping your customer records secure.

I just updated the Privacy Policy on your website.

The website must now provide clear information for reaching a responsible person in charge of the business. A physical address and or a real telephone number must be used. A person must be able to clearly communicate to you that they no longer wish to be receiving notices or emails from you. If you accept credit cards, you must be very diligent in caring for that person’s personal credit card information. Since most of you have some form of a shopping cart, accept credit cards or a reservation system on your website or through your business, this is critical.

If you have within your possession a person’s personal information AND their credit card or financial info – that can be a serious security issue for you.

Accepting credit cards today is very commonplace - keeping that information secure is a HUGE problem for small business owners. Fortunately, most of you are using a "Third Party" system - Professional Shopping Cart, PayPal, Reservation System, etc.

Being PCI (Payment Card Industry) Compliant is critical. On a side note, if you don’t maintain your PCI Compliance, your credit card processing rate will dramatically increase.

We’ve all read about hackers hitting the big companies. Small businesses are next!

Do not use emails for personal info and credit cards – emails are not secured. If you write someone’s credit card info down on paper, please take the time to shred it immediately after you are finished with that information.

If you must keep a “copy” of it, please black out all but the last 4 digits of the card, etc.

Please take the time to read through your Privacy Page (usually a link within your footer of the website) and understand it.

If you feel it needs more info or clarification, please let me know.

Thanks for taking the time to read all this!!

If you know someone that could use some website help, please ask them to "Contact Us" on my website.

I hope it helps you have a better understanding of just how important a Website is for your business today; and even more so, tomorrow!

Thanks!

Bernie