Privacy and security

[stu]

Hi

any one know of a website were i can find a good bit of info on privacy and security on the internet relating to using javascript on your site and cookies.

I have to write a report regarding the privacy and security issues that should be considered with using javascript to act as simple credit card form validation. i have come across a few website and they seem to have conflicting statements so i need one that is correct. I'm not really in the position to stipulate which one is correct to use as reference and gain the correct information from as its a subject i am learning.

so if any one knows of a site that is good, puts it in simple English and is correct please could you point me to it. i only have to write 500 words on this subject but have to cover the basics.

thanks

stuart

[Andy]

Hi Stu,

I went with Google's recommendations on what to display in a Privacy Page since they take it very seriously as they use analytics and track people a lot as they surf the web.

Check out this link: http://www.google.com/privacypolicy.html

[stu]

Hi

thanks for that, i never even thought of that, yes they do take it seriously, more than anyone now. such a simple answer is to use them yet it never occured to me

[Andy]

I actually think that the privacy policy is an important ingredient of any website but it may affect rankings.

What I am not clear on is how to handle it in the robots.txt file since it is important that it is noted but I don't particularly want the content of the file affecting my content theme as indexed by the search engines. Thinking out loud, this may be a case where duplicate content is a good idea, so the privacy page is ignored by search engines for the overall site ranking, but is still seen by the bots that check that you have a good privacy policy.

[stu]

Why do the robots check to see if you have a privacy pollicy now. if so how can they distinguish what it is as we would all name that file diffrent. i have mine as dissalow in the robots.txt file as only want the main pages indexing by the search engines.

I to agree that it is a must. part of this course is javascript, then liciencing laws (very important) and then pricacy and security issuse mainly based around javascript. and as usuall useability and accessibility. there are so many people scamming now customers or visitors to your site dont want information sharing, just a simple internet search can now produce enough information to pass on to telly sales extra, people seeing you have one on your site and stipulation that you complie with the The eighth principle of the Data Protection Act 1998 some what reasures then that when they do give you information it stays within your company.

[Andy]

Why do the robots check to see if you have a privacy policy now

For Google, it is (or soon will be) a requirement that you have a privacy policy in place to use some of their services such as Adsense. I expect that a robot will visit your site and look for the "privacy" keyword in a url. The actual content of the file may not be so important but rather you actually took the trouble to consider adding a privacy policy to your site. I may not be totally correct here so please research the rules of the various search engines your self to get the best understanding of the current situation.