Imprint page

A user in the EU recently pointed out that they need to be able to add an Imprint page to their blog, and suggested having the option to add this page as a link in the footer. I’d definitely like to support this, but without messing with the interface too much, if possible.

What does everything think about this potential implementation:

  • If you publish a post with Imprint as the title / slug, you’ll see the option to pin that page to your blog navigation. This would be available for everyone, even free users on Write.as (normally, static pages are only a Pro feature).
  • Pressing “pin” on the post will put it in the footer of your blog, instead of the header, where static page links normally go. The footer link would be accessible on all of your blog’s pages.
  • This would be well-documented in the guides, so everyone understands how to add this page

Questions:

  • Any potential issues you see with this?
  • Should the link go above or below the normal footer text?
  • The idea is that only posts at write.as/yourblog/imprint would be recognized as this special page. Should we also recognize other special words, like the German impressum? Any other languages?
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In France Imprint or Impressum have no signification. We can use something like Mentions légales (slug: mentions-legales).

As a German user I think it is more than OK to use just a normal page as an imprint. Of course, it would be very prominent on top of the page. I guess you could argue for hours with a lawyer how prominent the link to the imprint must be. As far as I know, it needs to be directly accessible from the home page somewhere – so a smaller link in the footer would be ideal from a purely aesthetic standpoint.

But what is needed for the EU is the infamous “cookie warning”, i.e. a small overlay or banner that asks users consent for accepting cookies to be GDPR compliant. This goes hand in hand with a page about privacy information. This could be handled in a similar way as the imprint page.

If possible, I would rather have the choice to either pin it to the main navigation or the footer, and not make the decision based on the slug name. It could be “Imprint” or if you write only in German it could be “Impressum” or part of the “About” page. Same goes for the privacy info page. It could be “Privacy Information” or “Privacy” or “Privacy Info” or “GDRP” or something similar. I would rather not be limited in my naming convention.

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@matt How about allowing pinned posts to appear either top or bottom? When you tap on pin, there would be a sub-menu to select top or bottom.

Either that way, or top remains default, and you can pin it to the bottom in the post’s settings.

Using this method, you wouldn’t need to accommodate for different languages or anything. Site owners could pin any page to the bottom.

Imprint and privacy policy are a legal requirement where I live, and definitely not to be ignored. Fines can be high. Links at the bottom of the page are standard practice.

There really isn’t any room for those links at the top of the page. 99% of readers are not interested in them. The links are only there for judges and lawyers.

I have added some JavaScript to do this for now, but if there are any glitches with the JavaScript in a particular browser, and the link doesn’t appear, it could mean trouble.

This would also be useful for sites that are not personal blogs. Project and company blogs often need to put a lot of links to information in the footer, just like Write.as has itself.

Perhaps even have standard GDPR, Imprint, Privacy policy links by write.as
This way we writers don’t need to worry for as long as the blog is about writing without external code loading.
And for those needing external code to load, well, they’re on their own to edit the standard.

I only realised a few weeks ago while researching GDPR in a bit more depth, that probably every blog by an EU citizen requires a privacy policy.

It has nothing to do with commercial use. Many of us falsely believe a privacy policy is only for business websites.

It’s not only about whether the blog owner is collecting site visitor data. It’s about the blog hosting provider and the third-party services they are using.

This is a bit easier to understand if you imagine a different platform to Write.as. Let’s say, a free blogging platform which shows advertising. They typically will be collecting user data and tracking. The blog owner might never collect or access any visitor data, but the platform does and the visitor needs to be informed. I think that’s the best way to understand the intention behind requiring a privacy policy from private and non commercial blogs.

Write.as keeps this to a minimum, but I believe a privacy policy needs to be present on every blog.

Each domain is its own website. Even though the privacy policy would be identical by default for every blog, a reader does not have access to the privacy policy because they don’t know Write.as is behind it.

Of course, if any blog uses additional third-party services, they would need to add that to the default privacy policy.