In the past few weeks our company “ARKM Online Verlag” had to cancel an increasing number of requests from customers concerning advertorials due to missing legal notice and privacy policy on the websites of the clients. ARKM does not accept sponsored posts from customers who do not have these obligated informations on their websites. In the following article we will explain to you why a legal notice and a privacy policy are necessary.
Legal notice
In Germany companies are generally required by law to make a legal notice and a privacy policy available on their website. According to the german Telemedia Act (TMG) paragraph 5, an inclusion of the following informations are obligated for a legal notice:
- Name and address of the branch office and also a legal form as well as authorized representatives in regard of legal entities
- Contact details
- Details of the commercial register, register of associations, register of partnerships or register of cooperatives with the corresponding register number
- details of the competent supervisory authority
- the sales tax identification number (USt.-ID-Nr)
Privacy policy
Beside the legal notice companies are obligated to have a protection of data privacy or a privacy policy on their websites. The significance of the protection of data privacy has increased since the year 2018. According to Art. 13 DSGVO the protection of data privacy should inform the website user whether and in what kind of form their personal or sensitive data is collected on the website. The website user must be informed of the following points by the time personal data is collected:
- Information about the responsible person (name and contact details)
- Purpose of the processing
- Legal basis of the processing
- Storage period or the criteria for this
- web user rights
- Rights of appeal
- Furthermore website operators also have to include the use of social media, forms and analytics tools such as Google analytics tools in the privacy policy.
Why is a legal notice and a privacy policy so important?
The legal notice and the privacy policy are part of the protection of data policy. According to the GDPR, website users have the right to be informed about the processing of their data. In addition a legal notice is obligated on a website by the time the website is based on a profit-making purpose. Companies without a legal notice and a privacy policy violate the competition law and can be admonished.
Because of the legal obligation of a privacy policy and a legal notice, ARKM does not cooperate with any company that does not have these informations on their websites.
