BBBOnline Privacy Seals

Have you ever wondered what the Better Business Bureau does with online companies? Well you are in luck cause I did some research and found out about the BBBOnline. With more and more trust problems online the BBB comes to the rescue. BBBOnline is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Council of the Better Business Bureau and is targeted towards promoting trust and confidence in online business transactions.

The BBBOnline works with the Federal Trade Commission to expose fraudulent businesses and scams that might be committed against general consumers by online businesses. How is that for protection? Pretty good I would say!

BBBOnline provides three seals that certify that a website exercises responsible privacy policies and has met the strict guidelines set by the council of Better Business Bureaus for conducting ethical business practices online.

The three seals provided by BBBOnline are:

1. Reliability Seal – This certifies that the company holding the seal is a member of the local Better Business Bureau and has met the guidelines set for ethical advertising and reliability.

2. Privacy Seal – This seal certifies that the company holding the seal conforms to the set guidelines for information privacy standards.

3. Kid’s Privacy Seal – The BBBOnline Kid’s Privacy Seal is targeted towards protecting privacy of information collected from children. The Kid’s Privacy seal is granted to only those websites that comply strictly with the guidelines set for safeguarding information collected from young children on the web.

The BBBOnline Privacy program offers the following:

1. A BBBOnline seal to online business that posts privacy policies on their websites which adheres to the required “core” principles such as security, choice and disclosure.

2. Monitors regulation compliance by member businesses by requiring participating companies to undertake at least an annual assessment of their online privacy policies.

3. Provide solutions for the settlement of online business disputes.

4. On non-compliance, specific consequences are imposed on the company that includes seal withdrawal, referral to government enforcement agencies and negative publicity.

You can always find out more at www.bbb.org/online where some of this information was extracted from.

The Better Business Bureau has been operational for more than 80 years and has been committed ever since to provide business reliability reports, online consumer dispute resolutions and raising general awareness for ethical and unethical businesses for the general buying consumers. The main objective of BBB is to help both consumers to build trust in businesses as well as to online businesses to grow and maintain a healthy relationship with their customers.

Placing the BBBOnline seals on a website not only marks an online business to be ethical in nature, but it also helps the business to win trust of existing and potential customers and generate greater sales.

The internet today is flooded with scams and fraudulent business practices which makes it difficult for general buying customers to differentiate between a legitimate and illegitimate business unless they see a reliability seal certified by a trusted and reputed organization such as the BBBOnline. Once a customer sees the seal on a website, they can rest assured that the sensitive information passed on to the website is safeguarded and the website conducts ethical business practices.

How to know if a website is BBBOnline certified

There are two ways to verify that a website is accredited by the BBBOnline privacy program.

1. A BBBOnline privacy seal will be placed on the website’s home page or the privacy policy page. A valid seal will always be linked to their website.

2. There is also a directory maintained by BBBOnline on their website where they list all the participating websites and even provide a search function for quick verification of a company or website.

We hope this article has helped you find out more about building trust and confidence with your online customers.