Poorly Drafted Privacy Terms Can Stymie Opportunities

Are your privacy policies setting traps for your own company?

Consider a company that wanted to send promotional or advertising emails to customers who had registered on its website. On the surface, this shouldn't be a problem: A business firm can normally send advertising to its customers. But on close inspection, that company's website privacy policy stated, "We will use information you provide only for the purpose for which you provide it." By sending email messages to customers who had registered for a different reason, the company was violating that promise.

The company was trapped by its own privacy policy. This isn't uncommon. Too often privacy policies are written too broadly, or with too little consultation with your technical staff or consultants (as to what information you actually collect and what you do with it) or with your marketing staff (as to how you may want to use the information you collect).