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Posted by Rochelle in Did you know that Commission Junction (aka CJ) requires every site that uses CJ links to have a privacy policy? Not only that, CJ is very specific about what should be in a privacy policy. You can read CJ’s requirements here but the paragraphs I’m referring to state:
2. Publisher Obligations to CJ.…
(b) Use of Links. You represent and warrant that all promotional means used by You will not contain objectionable content (including but not limited to content that is misleading, libelous, defamatory, obscene, violent, bigoted, hate-oriented, illegal, and/or promoting illegal goods, services or activities), and that You will not mislead others. You agree to: (i) use ethical and legal business practices, (ii) comply with the Advertisers’ Program terms and this Agreement, (iii) maintain a privacy policy on Your Web site and for any non-Web site based promotional method made available to Visitors, and (iv) designate Your Publisher Account as “special” if You promote an Advertiser(s) by any means other than displaying a Link to the Advertiser on Your Web site. CJ must approve all of Your promotional activities and may deem Your promotional activities inappropriate and a material breach of this Agreement in CJ’s sole discretion. Our network quality department reviews publisher conduct and any suspected fraudulent, abusive or otherwise illegal content or activity by You through Your promotional methods, or that is perpetrated through use of the Network Service, is grounds for immediate termination of this Agreement or deactivation of Your Account.
(e) Privacy. You must conspicuously post Your privacy policy on Your Web site and otherwise make it available to all Visitors. Your privacy policy must comply with all laws and regulations regarding the privacy of Visitor information, be commercially reasonable, and fully and accurately disclose Your collection and use of Visitor information. You must fully and accurately disclose Your use of third party technology, including CJ’s tracking technology, use of cookies and options for discontinuing use of such cookies.
There are many Build A Niche Store (aka BANS) sites that are missing privacy policies or have inadequate policies (including my own sites). As of this writing I was able to find about 315,000 BANS sites on Google. Of those sites, only about 11,700 have privacy policies. I did the math. Little over 3% of visible BANS sites have a privacy policy. That means if CJ decides to enforce this policy that 97% of BANS sites would be shut down, possibly for good.
I suggest that you go through all your sites that use CJ (BANS or otherwise) and make sure each has a privacy policy that meets CJ’s requirements.
I have created a template that complies with CJ’s requirements that you may use.
My instructions to add a privacy policy to your site: |
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Step One
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| Log in to your site’s Admin and click the ‘Content Pages‘ tab and ‘Create Content Page‘ link. | |
| Step Two | |
| Create your new content page and name it something like, “Privacy Policy.” | |
| Copy and paste the contents of privacy-policy-site-terms.htm to the Page Content area. | |
| Change the following bit of code before you save your changes: | |
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| You may decide to edit or delete portions of privacy-policy-site-terms.htm. If you do, just make sure you do not delete the required elements. | |
| Save page and view site for errors. | |
| done | |
Rochelle
Thank you BIG time for this
Hi Rochelle,
Thank you very much for making the pp public.
Regards,
Paul.
(PS. I’m a BANS member and have just come from there).
[...] Add a Privacy Policy. [...]
Thank you very much for this.
Rich
You’ve obviously spent some time on this and a big Thank You goes out to you for your efforts.
Mick,
Yes, these are time-consuming, but I really love doing them.
I appreciate the kind words from all the comments : )
Rochelle
Wow Rochelle, thank you! So glad I found your site.
You’re Brilliant!
A Big Thank You!
[...] this you need to do few more things. You need to add privacy policy to your website and the content to your site. Now just write 5 reviews of 5 major products you [...]
All the information provided by you on your website is extremely helpful for anbody trekking accross the Bans landscape- Thanks a million.
I use Bans v3EPN. Since we do not use CJ network in this version but the Ebay partner network do you still need to add the privacy policy?- Does EPN have this requirement?
Chand,
Excellent question. I haven’t seen that eBay’s EPN requires sites to have a privacy policy but there are two good reasons to have one anyway.
1) Google requires all sites that display AdSense ads to have a privacy policy so if you use AdSense you need to have one.
2) Google and other search engines like sites to have privacy policies and may rank them higher than comparable sites that don’t have them.
I suggest you add them because they can only help your sites.
Rochelle
Dear Rochelle,
I noticed on your Pony site the Privacy Policy looks like a link on your footer. I would rather add it to my footer than to my main page. I’d greatly appreciate if you let me know how to do this!
Thanks again for your help!
Rita
Rita,
I’ve actually already written instuctions on doing exactly what you want
You can read how to add links to your footer at http://www.nichestorestrategie.....es-footer/
Rochelle
[...] my instructions on how to add a privacy policy to your [...]
Hum..good tips here. Exactly what I was looking for.
Thanks!
[...] I made a script to automatically add a Privacy Policy to your BANS Store. I based the script off of Rochelle’s instructions here: http://www.nichestorestrategie.....your-site/ [...]
Thank you so much!
This makes things so much easier on me. I cant thank you enough for making that privacy policy public!
Have you had a chance to update this for the privacy policy for the Ebay EPN?
Thanks for a great site and all the wonderful tips.
Brian,
Wow, am I glad you asked about this. Prior to your asking I hadn’t noticed that EPN specifies what our privacy policies need to include. Here is what eBay’s EPN agreement states regarding affiliates and privacy policies:
“Your Privacy Policy. You will conspicuously post a privacy policy on your website or otherwise make it available to all end users. Your privacy policy must comply with all laws and regulations regarding the privacy of visitor information, be commercially reasonable, and fully and accurately disclose your collection, use and disclosure of visitor information. You will fully and accurately disclose your use of third-party technology, including ePN’s tracking technology, use of cookies and options for discontinuing use of such cookies.”
Honestly, I’m not sure how to word that we use EPN. So, I emailed eBay and asked what they expect this to say. I just sent the email tonight and my experience is that they can take a week or more to respond. But, I will post what they say after I hear back from them.
Rochelle
Hi,
Thanks SO much for the Niche Store check List.
Ross