Dear _________:
The Online Privacy Alliance, a coalition of nearly 90 global companies and associations dedicated to promoting consumer confidence online, recently reviewed the top 500 Web sites and could not find a privacy policy on your company’s site: www.website.com. Businesses operating online are under tremendous scrutiny by the press, policymakers and potential customers who want to know how Web sites handle consumer privacy. It may be that you already have posted a privacy policy but, if so, our researchers had a hard time finding it.
I am writing to ask you to post a privacy policy if you have not done so already or making the policy you posted much easier to find. More than 65 percent of the most popular sites on the Web have done so and we’d encourage you to join them.
It is important that you not only post a privacy policy on your Web site, but also ensure that it:
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is easy to find, read and understand,
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provides consumers information about how to exercise choice about how their information is used,
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discloses the security measures taken to assure the data’s reliability,
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provides a contact person with whom consumers can communicate problems or concerns, and
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addresses your mechanism to provide consumers access to the information you collect about them in order to assure its accuracy.
Consumers are demanding that privacy be respected. Lawmakers are calling for legislation to regulate the handling of personal information online, and an environment of trust and protection is increasingly becoming a requirement for online business.
Together, we can prove that regulation is not needed, that nobody understands our customers’ needs better than we do and that we are worthy stewards of our customers’ trust.
I have attached the OPA’s adopted Guidelines and Principles for reference. Feel free to consult the OPA Web site (http://www.privacyalliance.org) for more resources or contact us directly at 202-638-4371 for more information.
Christine Varney
Chair
Online Privacy Alliance