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"Customers buy from merchants they can
trust!"
"With the alarming
increase of online crime
and fraud, the aexcea SecurePage™ trust seal
helps shoppers tell who
the good guys are."
"3 out of 4 visitors
actively look for trust
seals before making a purchase."
"If your customers can
see our symbol, they
can trust your site. It’s
as simple as that.
TRUST." |
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| aexcea SecurePage™ Fair Play Policy |
Customers want to be treated with respect.
They want to know they will be treated fair and with honesty. |
The aexcea SecurePage™ Fair Play Policy is a guide and ethical code of conduct for e-business enterprises engaging with their customers. This code of conduct represents the basic tenets of ethical business practices that will boost consumer trust and confidence when dealing with an aexcea subscribing member.
As an essential component of the aexcea SecurePage™ Terms of Use Agreement, each subscribing merchant agrees to adhere to this code of conduct and to conduct their online business accordingly.
Constructing and Complying with Privacy Policies
Personal information is defined as that which includes any factual or subjective information, recorded or not, about an identifiable individual. This includes but is not limited to information in any form such as:
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- age, name, ID numbers, income, ethnic origin, blood type
- opinions, evaluations, comments, social status, or disciplinary actions
- employee files, credit records, loan records, medical records, existence of a dispute between a consumer and a merchant, intentions (for example to acquire goods or services or change jobs)
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Personal information does not include the name, title or business address or telephone number of an employee of or an organization.
It is the responsibility of the members of the aexcea SecurePage trust symbol program to maintain a commitment to maintaining the accuracy, confidentiality, and security of personal, private and financial information. As part of this commitment, member merchants agree to adhere to the aexcea SecurePage™ Fair Play Policy which establishes ten basic privacy principles designed to govern the use and collection of private information.
The aexcea SecurePage™ Fair Play Policy “Privacy Policy Guidelines” are based on the Canadian Standards Association’s “Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information” and the government of Canada’s “Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act,” two of the most protective policy programs in the world. |
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Accountability |
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- Merchants are responsible for maintaining and protecting client information under its control. Merchants must designate an individual within their organization who is responsible and accountable for compliance with their Privacy Policy.
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Identifying Purposes |
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- The purposes for which information is collected must be identified before or at the time such information is collected.
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Consent |
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- The knowledge and consent of web visitors and or customers is required for the collection, use or disclosure of customer information, except where required or permitted by law.
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Limiting Collection |
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- The information collected must be limited to those details necessary for the purposes identified by the merchant related directly fulfilling the merchants obligations to the visitor or customer. Information must be collected by fair and lawful means.
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Limiting Use, Disclosure and Retention |
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- The information collected may only be used or disclosed for the purpose for which it was collected unless the client has otherwise consented, or when it is required or permitted by law. Client information may only be retained for the period of time required to fulfill the purpose for which it was collected.
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Accuracy |
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- Collected information must be maintained in as accurate, complete and up-to-date form as is necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it is to be used.
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Safeguarding Information |
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- Customer and visitor information must be protected by security safeguards that are appropriate to the sensitivity of the information.
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Openness |
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- Merchants are required to make specific personal or private information available to its customers and visitors concerning the policies and practices that relate to the management of their information.
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Customer Access to Information |
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- Customers and visitors must be provided with access to the personal and or private information collected about them when requested. Customers may verify the accuracy and completeness of their information, and have it corrected or amended, if appropriate.
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Handling Complaints and Challenges to Compliance |
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- Merchants must provide customers and visitors with a means of directing their concerns or questions regarding privacy principles through the use of direct or indirect contact.
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Designing Good Business Practices: “What Good Looks Like”
Ethical and fair practices in business benefit both the customer and the business. Businesses engaged in ethical practices adhere to policies formulated around the concepts of "What Good Looks Like" including: |
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Engage in truthful and honest business practices |
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- Members agree to conduct themselves in a truthful and honest manner without employing the use of deceptive or misleading practices. This includes truth in advertising and not making misleading statements or omitting certain facts.
- Each claim should be factual and endeavor to increase the customer’s awareness and understanding of a product rather than mislead or “dupe”. Additionally, aexcea member merchants should not create misleading representations of affiliation, sponsorship, trustworthiness, endorsements, popularity, or business quality.
- Merchants should never engage in the deceptive practice of representing someone else’s intellectual or material property as their own. Nor should merchants use deceptive search engine and online advertising practices such as keyword stuffing, misleading search terms and other such misleading devices designed to drive traffic to their websites.
- Merchants should endeavor to promote their properties and materials in an honest and ethical manner.
- Merchants should not engage in illegal, deceptive, or fraudulent businesses, nor should they attempt to interfere with the customer’s browsing experience, computer or any other internet appliance through the use of spam, adware, spyware or malware, or other deceptive devices such as false button clicks or “tricking” customers into unwanted or unintended downloads.
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Collection of private data and online security practices |
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- Members are required to post a Privacy Policy on their website with a link included on each page of the site
- Privacy Policies are considered legally binding contracts between the merchant and the visitor
- Privacy Policies should disclose what information is collected from visitors and customers and how that information is used, shared, and or distributed
- Privacy Polices should also outline the security practices utilized to protect the personal information of visitors and what access visitors have to personal information collected on them
- aexcea member merchants are permitted to collect only that information necessary for promoting their business and conducting transactions
- With the exception of information collected for the purpose of transactions, all other information collected must be “aggregate” information, that is information that is not specific to any particular individual
- Information collected should never be shared, transferred, traded or sold to third parties
- The United States, Canada, The United Kingdom, and the European have specific laws and regulations regarding the collection of personal or private information, merchants must adhere to these laws and regulations
- Privacy Policies should be written in simple, easy to understand language and avoid the use of “legalese”
- Merchants should respect the customer’s wishes in regards to email and unsolicited messages (spam)
- Merchants collecting email addresses for the purposes of newsletters, blogs, specials, or free products should provide an “opt-out” device either on the website or within any message sent
- Merchants should remove a customer’s email address from any and all lists immediately upon being asked to do so
- Merchants should avoid unsolicited contact with customers or visitors except when such contact is relevant to the business currently at hand
- When engaging in activities that require the collection of personal, private, or financial information (such as collecting addresses and names for order fulfillment), the collection of such information should be conducted via SSL secured online forms
- aexcea member Merchants are not permitted to collect, handle, store, manage, transfer or otherwise handle the financial information of their customers; payments must be made through qualified third-party payment processors only (this is to ensure the utmost security for the customer)
- Merchants collecting sensitive information such as health, insurance, identification numbers (driver’s licenses, social security, etc.) are required to protect this information via appropriate encryption and authentication standards
- Merchants are required to have aexcea conduct a weekly scan of their website for security vulnerabilities and exploits
- Merchants are required to fix or repair found vulnerabilities within a reasonable period of time (given to be the time between weekly scans)
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Business information & transaction declaration |
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- aexcea member merchants are required to provide basic information about their business to visitors including the legal name of the business, the physical address of the business in a manner that permits a visitor to locate the business, a telephone number that is answered or from which messages are returned within a reasonable period of time, and an email address which is monitored regularly
- Merchants are required to own the domain under their registered business name or under the business owner’s name, such information should be accessible through an internet registrar
- Merchants should provide enough information about their goods and or services, and the quality of such, to permit the visitor or customer to make an appropriately informed choice about the goods or services
- Merchants should provide the full details of the transaction to their customers including the full price, taxes and or duties, government fees, currency, shipping and handling, additional costs, customer costs, terms of business and transactions, and product availability and shipping times
- If a delay in shipping occurs, the merchant must inform the customer immediately
- Merchants should display a breadcrumb and a roadmap of the transaction process
- Merchants must provide a digital receipt, either through email or on-screen print out (preferably both), of the transaction
- Merchants should inform their customers how a transaction will appear on their bills
- In those instances of recurring payments, merchants must not make such payments absolutely binding and must provide a means of canceling recurring payments easily and without penalty
- Merchants must never increase the recurring payment without first seeking the permission of the customer and providing the customer with the opportunity to cancel the service without penalty
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What “good” looks like for the customer |
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- Merchants should never make promises that cannot or will not be kept
- Merchants must honor their commitments, representations and promises
- Merchants should endeavor to provide as much information about their products and services as possible through FAQ’s, blogs, knowledge base systems and other such online technology mechanisms
- Merchants should answer customer’s questions promptly and effectively
- Merchants should conduct themselves professionally at all times
- Merchants should place the customers first and strive to make the customer experience healthy, happy and satisfactory service
- Merchants should understand a customer complaint is a gift and treat it as such while endeavoring to resolve the issue in a satisfactory, fair, effective and equitable manner
- Merchants should reply to email and phone messages within 24 hours
- It is better to over-deliver than to under-deliver
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