Nowadays it is even more important that web designers and other creative professionals working in the digital field understand and implement digital policies. It does not matter if you are working at a big company, a small digital firm or simply just working as a freelance web designer, you have to double-check on a consistent basis that you are not breaking any laws.

The good news is that a digital policy can be straightforward! Web designers can rest assured as digital policies are not really as difficult to understand as they might sound. Once you have a basic understanding, you will feel quite comfortable to discuss the topic with a legal professional or client.

All businesses require digital policies

There are many ways in which web designers and businesses can make mistakes and one such way is failing to have a digital policy in place. The digital world is quite similar to our everyday environment and traditional brick-and-mortar businesses. It too has many rules that we must understand and adhere to. However, recently the web has become more complicated thanks to all the new requirements and challenges that online privacy poses.

Any business or person that does business online needs to have a digital policy and, more importantly, ensure that they implement it. If an online business fails to stick to their own digital policy (or worse yet – does not have one), the actual business, its clients, and income are left exposed. On top of that, a digital policy can have a direct influence on the website of a business, its email marketing campaign and social media platforms.

It is important that web designers and business owners understand that simply placing a link in the footer of the website’s pages that mentions something about a privacy policy is in fact not enough.

The real danger

So what if you have made up your mind that you are just going to take that risk and ignore digital policies completely? What is the worst that could possibly happen? Well, in many instances it can lead to unpleasant fines, legal action, or even a shutdown of your digital operations! For example, courts in Belgium have stated that ISPs can block a commercial website that fails to respect copyright laws. If this does not scare you, maybe the possibility that your brand’s rep can become tarnished will, because that too is a real risk.

However, it is not only big commercial enterprises that can be facing real risks! Even freelance content writers and small digital agencies can face fines.

Your digital policy

The digital policies that your business decides to use will be influenced by things such as the field it operates in and location (both the country of the domain and the location of the customers that your content is linked with). Another consideration is the different digital platforms that the business operates on.

If you are a web designer who needs to create a digital policy for your own web design agency, this checklist will not be too long and will primarily account for policies about cookies, privacy, and accessibility. Though, if you are creating it for a client, the list can be longer depending on the objective of the website and its social media campaign.

That being said, a good policy will not be longer than two pages and most people should be able to understand the wording. So, it should use straightforward language that is easy to understand and explains the following info: the policy’s name, the statement of the policy and its rationale. Be sure that the policy explains what people are supposed to do online and never do online and then also explain why people should follow its rules.

Yes, the way a digital policy is structured is crucial, though how and where it gets stored is even more important. The users who will have to adhere to the policy must be able to find it without any difficulty. So, be sure that those who visit the website can search for all the different digital policies.

At the end of the day, in order to reduce risk web developers, web design agencies and owners of online businesses must find a way to make peace with the fact that when it comes to digital policies there is a learning curve that never stops as external changes to policies can come out of the blue. As recent events have clearly shown, when it comes to the risks that come with using the web and the policies that are needed to prevent those risks, we still have a lot to learn.