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Digital policies are guidance statements put into place to manage risk and ensure that an organization’s core interests are served as it operates online. Think of policies as guardrails that keep the organization’s digital presence from going off the road.

The substance of digital policy should influence the behavior of employees when they are developing material for online channels. For example, the policy might specify that developers should not build applications that collect email addresses of children, because the company doesn’t want to violate their organization’s online privacy policy regarding children. Or perhaps content developers at a pharmaceutical company might be made aware of the differences in national policy as it relates to talking about the efficacy of their products online.

Because digital policy is a subset of corporate policy, it naturally inherits the corporate policy’s broad scope and diversity. Due to this scope and diversity, typically, a single individual or group cannot effectively author policy. This approach sometimes comes as a surprise to digital teams who feel that policy authorship falls naturally into their camp. That scenario occurs because organizations often conflate policy and standards; however, the two areas are not the same. Policies exist to protect the organization. They do not address online quality and how to achieve it—that is the role of standards.

A digital governance framework ought to designate a policy steward who is accountable for ensuring that all digital policy issues are addressed. Digital policy steward(s) should have a relatively objective, informed, and comprehensive view of the implications of digital for the organization. Digital policy authors are a diverse set of organizational resources who can contribute to and shape an appropriate organizational position for a given policy topic. In Chapter 4 “Staying on Track with Digital Policy,” I’ll go into more detail about the responsibilities of the policy steward and offer suggestions for which person or people ought to be authoring policy within organizations.

DO’S AND DON’TS

DON’T: Forget that digital policy is a subset of corporate policy and needs to be in harmony with other policies within your organization. For instance, digital policy is often informed by fiscal policy, IT policy, or vertical, market-focused external policy.

The Five Guiding Principles of Wikipedia¹

Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia, which is written by the people who use it in many different languages, as you can see in Figure 1.4.

FIGURE 1.4 Wikipedia: an encyclopedia for the world.

The “Five Pillars” of Wikipedia (an online free encyclopedia) represent a great example of how to design guiding principles for an organization. These pillars/principles capture the culture, values, and goals of the organization as it relates to the Wikipedia digital properties, and they provide clear directions to the Wikipedia development community. They are as follows:

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.

It combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers. Wikipedia is not a soapbox, an advertising platform, a vanity press, an experiment in anarchy or democracy, an indiscriminate collection of information, or a Web directory. It is not a dictionary, a newspaper, or a collection of source documents, although some of its fellow Wikimedia projects are.

Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view.

We strive for articles that document and explain the major points of view, giving due weight with respect to their prominence in an impartial tone. We avoid advocacy, and we characterize information and issues rather than debate them. In some areas, there may be just one well-recognized point of view; in others, we describe multiple points of view, presenting each accurately and in context rather than as “the truth” or “the best view.” All articles must strive for verifiable accuracy, citing reliable, authoritative sources, especially when the topic is controversial or a living person. Editors’ personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong.

Wikipedia is free content that anyone can edit, use, modify, and distribute.

Since all editors freely license their work to the public, no editor owns an article, and any contributions can and will be mercilessly edited and redistributed. Respect copyright laws, and never plagiarize from sources. Borrowing non-free media is sometimes allowed as fair use, but strive to find free alternatives first.

Editors should treat each other with respect and civility.

Respect your fellow Wikipedians, even when you disagree. Apply Wikipedia etiquette and avoid personal attacks. Seek consensus, avoid edit wars, and never disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. Act in good faith and assume good faith on the part of others. Be open and welcoming to newcomers. If a conflict arises, discuss it calmly on the nearest talk pages, follow dispute resolution, and remember that there are 4,261,587 articles on the English Wikipedia to work on and discuss.

Wikipedia does not have firm rules.

Wikipedia has policies and guidelines, but they are not carved in stone; their content and interpretation can evolve over time. Their principles and spirit matter more than their literal wording, and sometimes improving Wikipedia requires making an exception. Be bold, but not reckless, in updating articles, and do not agonize about making mistakes. Every past version of a page is saved, so any mistakes can be easily corrected.

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars

The Range of Digital Policy

Table 1.1 outlines the basic areas for policy consideration. Some organizations will need to address a more comprehensive set of policies based on their objectives or digital audience. For instance, organizations that support a digital presence for young children may have a specific children’s online privacy policy, or those people in healthcare may have to directly address patient and medical information that is related to privacy concerns. In fact, sometimes policies might have to be drafted to address constraints related to particular geographic regions such as states, nations, and unions.

TABLE 1.1 A LIST OF BASIC DIGITAL POLICY

Policy Topic	Description
Accessibility	Details the accessibility level that must be followed to ensure that all users can interact with your organization online.
Branding	Determines how your organization maintains its desired identity while online.
Domain Names	Manages the purchase, registration, and use of Internet domain names.
Language and Localization	Establishes parameters for language used in conducting business online and special information related to making content appropriate for locales globally. These include translation, idiom usage, imagery, and so on.
Hyperlinks and Hyperlinking	Determines how and when it is appropriate and inappropriate to hyperlink to content on the World Wide Web within and external to the organization.
Intellectual Property	Covers copyright and other ownership for information gathered, delivered, and used online.
Privacy	Covers the privacy needs of employees and users when interacting with the organization online. Specific technologies that are unique to the Web (like “cookies” and other tracking devices) are defined and their use discussed.
Security	Defines measures that will be taken to ensure that information delivered online (and used in transactions) and provided by customers and employees is used in the manner intended and not intercepted, monitored, used, or distributed by parties not intended.
Social Media	Addresses parameters for the use of social software within the organization.
Web Records Management	Specifies the full lifecycle management of content delivered and generated on the World Wide Web. May also include the disposition of transactional log files.