Privacy Policies
This document helps explain website policies, how they help you comply with laws and protect you by limiting your liability. We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice.
What is a Privacy Policy
A Privacy Policy helps website owners comply with privacy laws by providing specific disclosure requirements such as how their website collects, uses, and discloses personally identifiable information and more.
A comprehensive Privacy Policy is required to comply with privacy laws
Today’s modern websites are built to provide a great user experience, this is done through the use of tools such as contact forms, website analytics, and more. Contact forms ask users to submit their ‘name’ and ‘email’, which are examples of personally identifiable information. When a website uses analytics, it collects each visitor’s IP address and shares that personally identifiable information with third-party data analytics providers. These are just a few examples of the many ways websites collect and share personally identifiable information.
Penalties for non-compliance
The collection of personally identifiable information is regulated under multiple privacy laws. For example, in the US, there are four state privacy laws that can apply to businesses, regardless of their location, and fines for non-compliance start at $2,500 per “infringement” (per website visitor). Each of these privacy laws has specific disclosure requirements that have to be added to your Privacy Policy to be compliant.
On top of that, over two dozen privacy bills have been proposed on a state-level, each with their own unique disclosure requirements and penalties for not complying. Some of these bills will enable citizens to sue businesses (of any size or location) for collecting their personally identifiable information without an up to date and compliant Privacy Policy. Due to the ever-changing nature of privacy laws, we recommend that you not only have a comprehensive Privacy Policy in place but that you also develop a strategy to keep your policies up to date when these laws are amended or when new laws are implemented.
What is a Terms of Service Agreement
A Terms of Service Agreement limits the liability of businesses by stating the rules to using the website.
Example disclosures
third-party links: When a website offers links to third-party websites, a Terms of Service can help explain to users that the business is not responsible if a user clicks those links. So, if a third-party link brings a user to a hacked website, the Terms of Service disclosure can help prevent you from being sued.
DMCA Notice: A Terms of Service agreement can also provide what’s called a DMCA notice, which helps prevent a business from being sued by providing contact information in case the website is accidentally using copyrighted material (like images or content).
There are many additional disclosures that a Terms of Service can make, but these two are the most popular and are easy ways to protect your website and your business.
What is a Disclaimer
A Disclaimer is a document that helps limit your responsibilities and liabilities for your website in certain circumstances.
Does your website:
Advertise third-party products or services? A Disclaimer will help you protect yourself if a user clicks on the third-party advertisement and gets a virus, is somehow injured by the product or service, or is not happy with the third-party product or service
Sell or display health products? A Disclaimer will help you protect yourself in this case if the health products do not work as they should, do not deliver the results that were expected or if the user gets injured by the health products.
Participate in an affiliate program? An affiliate program is a program whereby you list a particular link on your website and, if the user clicks on that link or purchases the products that the link displays, you receive money from the manufacturer of that product. A Disclaimer will help you comply with the affiliate program’s Terms of Service as most affiliate programs require you to provide a Disclaimer and will help you keep your user’s trust.
Provide health and fitness advice? A Disclaimer will protect you in case the user gets injured after following your health and fitness advice, much like the beginning of those exercise videos that you will watch in January of next year.
Provide information that could be seen by others as legal advice? A Disclaimer will protect you here by stating that there is no attorney client relationship here and that this advice is not legal advice, thus protecting you in case something goes wrong.
What is a Cookie Policy and cookie consent banner
Cookies are little snippets of code that get inserted into the user’s browser and device when visiting a website. They can help ensure a website properly functions (aka essential and functional cookies). They can also track website visitors for analytics and advertising purposes (aka marketing cookies). Several privacy laws require users to provide consent prior to implementing non-essential cookies on their browsers. This is commonly done through a cookie consent banner, which will ask your website visitors to choose their consent settings. It is important to identify what privacy laws apply to you, and determine if you are required to provide a cookie consent solution on your website along with a Cookie Policy further describing the purpose of each cookie.
How to obtain website policies
If you have the budget, we recommend hiring a lawyer that focuses on privacy law to write your website policies, monitor privacy laws, and update your policies when the laws change or when new laws go into effect. If you do not have the budget to hire a privacy lawyer for your website policies, we recommend using Termageddon.
Termageddon is a comprehensive website policies generator and will update your policies when privacy laws change or new privacy laws go into effect, helping you stay compliant and avoid privacy related fines and lawsuits, and they do it at a fraction of the cost of a lawyer.
If Termageddon sounds like a good solution for you, the license costs $99/year, $10/month or included in the Universal Code Auto-Pilot Plans.
Website Policies Waiver
Universal Code makes a good faith effort to inform you when state, national, or international law may require your website to have a Privacy or Cookie Policy. We are not lawyers, and we are not responsible for your business complying with any applicable privacy laws.
We have a relationship with a third-party Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions generator service called Termageddon and we are able to assist you with linking those policies to your website. You are under no obligation to utilize Termageddon, but it is the service that we use on our own website, have a relationship with (we receive a commission fee or can resell their license to you if you decide to purchase) and recommend. Please note, should you choose to use Termageddon’s services, your relationship will be directly with them, governed solely by their Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
You may have your own preference for a third party policy generator service, and Universal Code will attempt to support that service, but cannot promise any deliverables using external software.
We are provided a static, general template for website collect data using analytics, forms or third party integrations. This template does not guarantee compliance, and is not recommended for websites collecting sensitive information or requiring strict adherence to applicable laws.
By signing this waiver, you are choosing not to have any posted policies, or will research, install, and update your policies on your own. You understand that by not having a comprehensive Privacy Policy on your website, that you may be non-compliant with multiple privacy laws. Universal Code will not be liable or responsible for any issues arising from this decision.
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Accessibility Policy
In 2021 lawsuits related to ADA website accessibility and digital inclusion regulations have increased 70% over the prior year with over 75% of those lawsuits targeting companies generating less than $50 million per year.
These lawsuits come without warning and are typically in the range of $25,000 to $50,000. The larger your company is, the larger the lawsuit will typically be.
Quick Facts About Accessibility Regulations:
- 26% of adults in the United States have a disability
- 75% of disabled individuals have one more website accessibility needs
- Websites are regulated by the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act)
- Official WCAG accessibility standards govern how a website should be developed and coded in order to be successfully used by disabled individuals
- These are legal, non-optional requirements that all businesses with websites must adhere to
Quick Facts About Accessibility Compliance:
- Making a website completely compliant is almost impossible. Even enterprise companies with large internal teams and budgets struggle to keep their website compliant
- Adhering to website accessibility standards is extremely technical and time consuming
- Adhering to website accessibility standards is an ongoing effort that requires routine audits and fixes
- Businesses, not developers, are responsible driving accessibility compliance
- Most businesses are unaware of accessibility regulations and compliance
Our Accessibility Guidelines
We work to adhere to the WCAG A Standard as the minimum for all of our websites, but strive to meet AA Standards.
To meet our minimum accessibility standards, all websites must meet the following criteria:
- Website is easily navigated via keyboard with focus styling.
- All appropriate images contain alt-texts, captions or image descriptions.
- All significant videos have captions or transcripts.
- Using Aria Labels and Semantic HTML following best practices.
- Accessibility Statement located in footer containing webmaster contact form.
- Autoplay videos must be muted by default and able to be paused.
- Limited animations and parallax effect.
- Text must meet minimum contrast requirements.
- Skip Links Hidden in Header
Accessibility Opt-Out Waiver
To maintain our standards and protect our business, all websites created and maintained by Universal Code require either: (A) Active compliance management or (B) A Signed Accessibility Opt-Out Waiver.
Universal Code implements an Accessibility Policy with every Website Build to ensure our websites meet certain standards. We are not lawyers, we do not guarantee 100% compliance.
As the Website Owner, you may choose to opt out of the Accessibility Policy.
By signing this waiver, you acknowledge that we informed you that state, national, or international law may require your website to have specific accessibility requirements. Universal Code will not be responsible for any repercussions that result from having a non-compliant, inaccessible website.
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