Privacy and Security in Website Development
by Gerald Trites

A company website is a face the company puts forward to the world, and needs to reflect the best possible policies the company could follow. This particularly applies to privacy and security, but many company websites do not reflect the practices, particularly those of small companies.

It's true that many websites have privacy policies stated on them, for example, but the question is - do they really follow those policies? Are the policies an important part of the way they do business or just something they copied from some other site to give the best impression.

How many companies actually show a trust certificate on their site, to demonstrate they are paying attention to best practices in website security. How many actually take the steps to ensure they are compliant with PCI standards if they accept credit cards. True, for some cards, such as Visa, they are required to comply. However this is not always the case. Issues like this are raised in a recent article in the E-Commerce Times on building websites for small business.

These matters are important, particularly in an era of increasing incidence of identify theft and data loss. Ultimately, it can even make the difference in the viability of a company. Stating the right policies is important. Following them is even moreso.