New Google AdSense Terms: Post a Privacy Policy
February 26th, 2008Google AdSense has updated its Terms and Conditions to prepare for future changes to the products and services they offer. A new requirement is that AdSense publishers need to post a privacy policy on their sites to abide with the terms.
Google announced the new policy changes -
We’ve also added some specific requirements that make it necessary for publishers to post and abide by a transparent privacy policy that users see. According to this policy, publishers must notify their users of the use of cookies and/or web beacons to collect data in the ad serving process. This change relates to advertisers’ use of innovative products and features like Gadget Ads and other offerings in the future.
So go ahead and prepare a privacy policy now. You might want to read the Google Privacy Policy to get a hint of more privacy issues related to Google.
I don’t think it will be easy for Google Adsense to enforce this policy on thousands of its bloggers and publishers. They will firstly need to setup a time frame to let bloggers post a privacy policy and many webmasters would have no idea what a privacy policy reads like, so they might have to post sample templates of suggested privacy policies. What if someone does not publish a privacy policy – will they ban their adsense account?
Update: Google AdSense Terms and Conditions have been updated. See under Program participation -
“You must have and abide by an appropriate privacy policy that clearly discloses that third parties may be placing and reading cookies on your users’ browser, or using web beacons to collect information, in the course of ads being served on your website. Your privacy policy should also include information about user options for cookie management.”
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you’r right man many webmasters have no idea how to write a privacy policy.
I am currently using these 2 paragraphs in my Terms of Service page.. If anyone found useful feel free to use in your site….
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ThisWebsite may use cookies to keep some information that are placed by a Web site in a storage place on your own computer. We use cookies to control the display of ads, to track usage patterns on the site, to deliver editorial content, and to record registration and personalization information. Our cookies may contain personally identifiable information and such cookies may be shared with our affiliated companies.
Some of our advertisers occasionally serve you cookies as well. We do not have control over cookies placed by advertisers. As a result of your visit to our site, ad server companies may collect information such as your domain type, your IP address and clickstream information.
There are two “boilerplate” privacy policies at http://www.ownterms.org/ which are licensed under Creative Commons or in the public domain.
Of course, you should consult a lawyer before assuming that you’re properly covered by either of these…
I have done calculated the differences between the old one and the new one here: http://www.jimkarter.com/2008-02-27-new-google-adsense-policy-change.html
… so … shortly – is that mean that I HAVE to put information on every my page with Adsense about privacy ?
If so … picture them guys with hundreds of webpages :-)
Hi,
This article saved my life…
Good article!
Sree prakash..can i please use the paragraphs you have written on my website as part of the policy?
Thanks a lot
Ishaan
Whewww..luckily I read this from your site.
Google Adsense is the flagship of contextual advertising! Really the best webmaster program for earning money!
Good post. I’ve come up with a simple privacy write-up on my site. Feel free to use if useful. Let me know what you guys think. Thanks.
http://www.strikr.net/privacy-policy
I may be wrong, but despite the clear intention to do so in the announcement, the new terms do not say that you must *publish* a privacy policy on your website. The terms just say that you must *have* a privacy policy.
Am I right?
Thanks for your two pargraphs.
I have six sites that show google ads and each site has lots of articles and I’m sure that nobody intends to post a ‘privacy policy’ on every page, because apart from the work involved it would take away from the page, both emotionally and asethetically.
Do you think that adding the ‘privacy policy’ to each ‘main page’ (home page) would be sufficient?
thanks,
Michael
Hi,
I have added Privacy Policy page to my website but still adsense not appearing on my site. Please tell me what should i do now?