Building a Web Site For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

TRUSTe

The TRUSTe site (www.truste.com) is shown in Figure 21-9.

Figure 21-9. TRUSTe provides Web sites with privacy policy certification.

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This site is kind of an open question. What question is that? Well, whether paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars to an outside group to certify that your privacy policy means what it says is worth the price to your organization. To solidly quantify how much a trustmark such as the TRUSTe seal means in terms of extra sales is impossible, just as it is with things such as Chamber of Commerce or Better Business Bureau logos in a store window. Nonetheless, major outfits from MSN to eBay have jumped onto the TRUSTe bandwagon.

If you collect any kind of potentially embarrassing personal information, such as criminal records or health status, getting TRUSTe certification is probably worth the cost. Without it, people may be reluctant to provide honest answers to such questions. Still, unless you’re in the employment or insurance business (or something similar), you’re not likely to gather any kind of information other than names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, and so on.

Visit the TRUSTe site and read over all the materials there to decide for yourself whether its service is right for your situation. You also find valuable advice there on creating a privacy statement. You can access the site’s home page ...