The importance of a good privacy policy on adsense sites

[Alyona The Publicist]

I have read on several adsense related ezines that google is cracking down on websites which do not have a good privacy policy.

Just for your information, a privacy policy is one rule which Google Adsense Terms of service advocates, they also have a description of what is required in this privacy policy!

So I would like to share with you the privacy policy I use on all of my adsense related sites, which according to my lawyer is according to the adsense TOS.

One more thing... you also need to have a 'contact us' page on your adsense sites!



Privacy Policy

The site you are visiting is owned and operated by ______. Your privacy on the Internet is of the utmost importance to us. At _________, we want to make your experience online satisfying and safe. Because we gather certain types of information about our users, we feel you should fully understand our policy and the terms and conditions surrounding the capture and use of that information. This privacy statement discloses what information we/our partners/ advertising companies gather and how this information is used.

Privacy

The privacy of our visitors is important to us.

We recognize that privacy of your personal information is important. Here is information on what types of personal information we receive and collect when you use and visit this website and how we safeguard your information. We never sell your personal information to third parties.

Log Files

As with most other websites, we collect and use the data contained in log files. The information in the log files include your IP (internet protocol) address, your ISP (internet service provider, such as AOL or Shaw Cable), the browser you used to visit our site (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox), the time you visited our site and which pages you visited throughout our site.

Cookies and Web Beacons

We do use cookies to store information, such as your personal preferences when you visit our site. This could include only showing you a popup once in your visit, or the ability to login to some of our features, such as forums.

We also use third party advertisements on to support this site. Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP , the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing New York real estate ads to someone in New York, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites).

DoubleClick DART cookies

We also may use DART cookies for ad serving through Google’s DoubleClick, which places a cookie on your computer when you are browsing the web and visit a site using DoubleClick advertising (including some Google AdSense advertisements). This cookie is used to serve ads specific to you and your interests (”interest based targeting”). The ads served will be targeted based on your previous browsing history (For example, if you have been viewing sites about visiting Las Vegas, you may see Las Vegas hotel advertisements when viewing a non-related site, such as on a site about hockey). DART uses “non personally identifiable information”. It does NOT track personal information about you, such as your name, email address, physical address, telephone number, social security numbers, bank account numbers or credit card numbers. You can opt-out of this ad serving on all sites using this advertising by visiting:
http://www.doubleclick.com/privacy/dart_adserving.aspx

You can choose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts.

Deleting cookies does not mean you are permanently opted out of any advertising program. Unless you have settings that disallow cookies, the next time you visit a site running the advertisements, a new cookie will be added.

Usage tracking

We track user traffic patterns throughout all of our sites. However, we do not correlate this information with data about individual users. Statistics are broken down according to a user’s domain name, browser type, and MIME type by reading this information from the browser string (information contained in every user’s browser).

We track and catalogs the search terms that a user enters in our Search function, but this tracking is never associated with individual users. We use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don’t like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you.

Children

We will never request personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 18 without requesting parental consent.

Use of Information

We act upon information supplied to us voluntarily by our users to enhance their experience in our network of sites, whether to provide interactive or personalized elements on the sites or to better prepare future content based on the interests of our users.

As stated above, we use information that users voluntarily provide in order to send out electronic newsletters and to enable users to participate in polls, surveys, message boards, and forums. We send out newsletters to subscribers on a regular schedule (depending on the newsletter), and occasionally send out special editions when we think subscribers might be particularly interested in something we are doing. We never share newsletter mailing lists with any third parties, including advertisers, sponsors or partners.

When we use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don’t like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you. We track search terms entered in Search function as one of many measures of what interests our users. But we don’t track which terms a particular user enters.

We create aggregate reports on user demographics and traffic patterns for advertisers, sponsors and partners. This allows our advertisers to advertise more effectively, and allows our users to receive advertisements that are pertinent to their needs. Because we don’t track the usage patterns of individual users, an advertiser or sponsor will never know that a specific user clicked their ad. We will not disclose any information about any individual user except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of our users or the public.

SHARING OF THE INFORMATION

We use the above-described information to tailor our content to suit your needs and help our advertisers better understand our audience’s demographics. This is essential to keeping our service free. We will not share information about individual users with any third party, except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of our users or the public.

SECURITY

We operate secure data networks protected by industry standard firewall and password protection systems. Our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorized individuals have access to the information provided by our customers.

YOUR CONSENT

By using our sites, you consent to the collection and use of this information. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page so that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose it.

[cdonne08]

what do you need on your site for adsense? i know private policy and contact us but is there anything else? thanks

[Alyona The Publicist]

I think privacy policy and contact us are very important, however i also advocate to have an 'about us' page, which even tough not necessary it does make your site look very professional in the eyes of a google adsense webmaster (who occasionaly pop-in to your site to check how it looks and see if you are doing everything according to their TOS!)

[pbbiet]

Thanks for share but there is already a plugin for WP which generates the privacy policy compliant to adsense TOS.

[Alyona The Publicist]

Originally Posted by pbbiet

Thanks for share but there is already a plugin for WP which generates the privacy policy compliant to adsense TOS.

not everyone uses WP!! - some create their own website in html, the good old way!!

[oldvintageguy]

On my site, I have a footer link that says "privacy and terms and conditions" (it's all just one link). I'm wondering if google has an algorithm that looks for two separate links: one for "privacy" and one for "terms and conditions."

I mean, I have all that stuff on one page -- I just wondered if, for SEO purposes, it's better to have one page for each?

[JoshuaGallant]

There are more than a couple "adsense privacy policy" generator sites out there. Using a dedicated plugin to make one page is a bit silly.

Most probably monetize through multiple mechanisms and one can add additional terms as requested for various aff networks, cpa etc.

If your building MFA's then as the OP said, it is best to put the basic pages in that a "real site" would do.

I even go so far as to build a staff page with multiple little personas and bios. Doubt it makes a difference but its a change a of pace from the drivel that performs so well in adsense.

As my target demo gets classier/smarter I do much more to make the site "real" .. I gasp even sometimes just make real sites!

[dogstar]

Alyona, thanks for sharing that...it seems very thorough. One question...did you post this as just an FYI or are we free to use it

[MattinSD]

Thanks for this great info. One question for you though.

You mention that we need to have a "Contact Us" page on any site displaying Adsense ads. I know that this is a good, sound recommendation, but is this spelled out anywhere in Google's TOS? I don't recall seeing it mentioned there and it seems that very few MFA sites actually have this.

Thanks again for the great contribution.

[jurojin]

You are right, a lot of people have lost their adsense accounts lately.. (among which, at least %30 of all the coupons sites ranked on 1'st page for coupon related keywords)..
One of the reason was the lack of a good privacy policy/contact us page but I would say that is not the MAIN reason why Adsense has started to ban accounts like crazy...
The main reason is because website owners have started to abuse the system...
They throw a small 300-400 words article on a wordpress EMD site... and 3 ads plus link units on the post.. This is not allowed , as google is clearly stating that "Up to 3 ads are allowed on a content rich page... So what is a content rich page? it's either the main index of your site/blog (tons of posts on it) , either a big 750+ words article, with a video and some images on it.. Basically if you are in the EMD business like I am (owning tons of exact match domains with wordpres sites and articles on them..) you should take the info above into consideration, or you'll soon be needing an Adsense alternative - knocking on wood -

[Alyona The Publicist]

Originally Posted by MattinSD

You mention that we need to have a "Contact Us" page on any site displaying Adsense ads. I know that this is a good, sound recommendation, but is this spelled out anywhere in Google's TOS? I don't recall seeing it mentioned there and it seems that very few MFA sites actually have this.

Thanks again for the great contribution.

don't copy the mfa sites, copy the 'professional' sites and they all have a contact us, about us and privacy policy page! What will it take? an hour max to publish these three pages? why miss out to make your site look professional?!