Tip: Provide TRUSTe with a complete list of all of your company’s Web sites that display a TRUSTe seal or link to a TRUSTe-certified privacy statement.

When conducting certification renewal reviews or ongoing compliance monitoring, TRUSTe staff frequently come across unfamiliar Web sites that display a TRUSTe seal or link to a TRUSTe-certified privacy statement. Although we have no record of the site, further research reveals that it is owned by a legitimate TRUSTe member who has not listed the site on its license agreement.

Consumers become confused when TRUSTe members fail to properly list all the Web sites they want reviewed and certified by TRUSTe. When a Web site is omitted from the licensing process, TRUSTe’s member list thus becomes inaccurate, and consumers are not able to submit privacy-related complaints against the site because it does not appear on our list. In fact, TRUSTe would not even know that the consumer tried to file a Watchdog compliant, since the consumer is immediately informed that the Web site submitted is not a TRUSTe member. Thinking that the site is trying to pull a fast one on its visitors, the consumer only has one more recourse: to file an “unauthorized use of the TRUSTe seal” complaint. This is not the message TRUSTe members want to give to consumers.

To stay in compliance with your license agreement, you should survey all your company’s Web sites to make sure that only sites listed on your license agreement display TRUSTe seals or link to your TRUSTe-certified privacy statement.

The benefits of listing all your Web sites on your membership agreement:

• All sites are all properly reviewed and monitored for compliance with TRUSTe’s program requirements
• Your sites are accurately listed on TRUSTe’s member list
• Consumers are able to effectively submit privacy-related complaints through TRUSTe’s Watchdog process
• TRUSTe is able to effectively assist you with potential privacy issues for the listed site
• You will not receive trademark-infringement notices from TRUSTe’s compliance team

If you discover that one of your Web sites are not listed on your TRUSTe license agreement, you must remove all TRUSTe seals from the unlicensed site and any links to TRUSTe-certified privacy statements until we have properly reviewed and certified the site. Our sales and account management teams will be happy to assist you with adding additional sites to your TRUSTe license agreement.

Joanne Furtsch is a senior account manager with TRUSTe.

Read past tips at www.truste.org/sealholders/tech_tips.php.

 

MAXAMINE