there in the channel. Send out signal
everything. I'm trying to get better and better all these prepping
how much goes on behind the scenes. All right, that signal is sent out. You're all set.
All right,
ladies and gentlemen, it is time for WordPress plugins A to Zed, not Z.
Welcome to another episode of WP Plugins A to Zed interview show. In this episode, we are talking privacy
power-ups for WordPress with Han Skiller, where we will be revealing how Termageddon keeps your site compliant
and amid changing laws and more.
WordPress, the king of content management systems, powering the web with over 80,000 plugins to choose from.
How do you sort the junk from the gems? Welcome to WP Plugins A to Zed, where
we've been keeping the pulse of WordPress alive for over 16 incredible years. Join us every week for an
unrehearsed real talk breakdowns of the latest and greatest plugins, developer, and community member interviews. Some
weeks, Amber and I team up to dig in. Others, I'm flying solo, unpacking WordPress news, demoing a standout
plugin, or sharing tips to power up your site. No scripts, no fluff, just the
good stuff from A to Z. So, plug in and let's get rolling.
Well, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you happen to be hiding out there on the globe today. Coming to you direct from the Brewery
overlook in beautiful southern Vancouver Island. I'm John Ool and welcome to
interview 74 of the WP Plugins A to Zed show where we're thrilled to have Hans Skittlerod the vice president and
co-founder of Termageddon joining us for a deep dive into the world of WordPress privacy a former Chicago web agency
owner who sold his 12person firm to focus on revolutionizing policy compliance. Hans brings his educators
passion to help WordPress users navigate tricky laws with auto updating privacy
policies and terms of service. We'll explore Termageddon's gamechanging features, agency insights from his
entrepreneurial journey, tips to dodge fines, but even touch on his adventures with
Adrin's beekeeping and great outdoors. And we're going to try to work into shot bomb. So, buckle up for a show of
essential knowledge and fun. Let's get started. Welcome to the show, Heads. I knew that would get you.
Yeah, it did. It did. I I I knew you right before this call started. You said I did my research and I'm like, "Oh
gosh, I hope he didn't hear about the shot bomb." Oh, no. That was that was front and center in some of the research. It's like really I went trying to find that
one out. That one there was kind of amusing. That's great. Um, and just a heads up, John, I did hear you see like you said
something about auto updating privacy policies and then it kind of went quiet for a second there and then you came back in. Yeah. So
that that would be a teams. Sometimes our audio will drop but it doesn't drop into recordings or what's going out to
uh the YouTube channel. Oh, perfect. Perfect. It's a Teams thing. It's almost like they've imported some of the stuff from
uh what was the program they had? We used to all the time
Microsoft just killed it. Uh oh man, the only thing I know they killed they they killed Internet
Explorer. That was a good day for us web designers out there. I remember that. Yeah. No, no, no. This this was the uh
the voice o voice over thing and for some reason it's okay not in my head right now. Maybe my
my second person will pop in there. Let me I'm just happy to hear that that all went through and um thanks so much for
having me. Oh yeah. Well, welcome to the show. Now, briefly before we get started, I just want to do some for for some
transparency. I am a uh agency partner with with Termageddon and we've been
with them for almost a year. Well, not quite a year now. It was earlier this year I joined in there and started working with them. They've been so
fantastic in support and service. Before I even knew who Hans was, he was answering my support emails for the
miscellaneous glitches we've had along the way. and it's been so fantastic and their customer service sold me because
they always go above and beyond. But I did want to let everyone know that that is part of it. But with all of that
being, we're going to dive in and ask some questions. Let's talk a little bit uh briefly some of their background on
you there. Know you've you've had a pretty good journey through things. You studied Miami University. You had a web
agency in Chicago. What started your interest into say web development?
Yeah. So, um, so prior to web development, I was one of the first employees at Groupon, um, back when
Groupon was just this little bitty company. Uh, they kind of grew up a little or they kind of exploded in
growth. Um, and, uh, I loved Groupon at the time, like, you know, hey, we offer
a 50% discount only if a bunch of people sign up. And I really felt like it like engineered some real good social
interactions. Yeah. But as the years progressed, I kind of just had this feeling in my stomach that
all we were doing was discounting small business owners. um uh who didn't know how to market themselves online
effectively um and basically reaping all the profits from all these small business owners. So, it really bothered
me and I was just like, you know, if someone was out there to try to help these small business owners have a voice online and be able to showcase what
they're passionate about online, they wouldn't need to cut themsel they wouldn't need to take 25 cents to the
dollar for everything they advertise through like channels like that. So, so my motivation was just I was working
with small business owners and I just felt like there was a better way to help them get exposure online. So, that's how I started.
That's a nice working is to get small business owners. That's some of the things I'm working on now with my agency
is we're working on ways to bring small businesses online inexpensive especially
in underserved areas such as amazing like electricians and plumbers and
places like that. They have nothing. And of course, we don't have the yellow pages anymore. where everybody used to
advertise back when I had my automotive shop, but it's it's always a challenge. So,
what kind of running a 12 person agency? It's like I'm small. I have like three people working for really a tiny place
for the most part. What kind of challenges did you face running a 12 person? That's a pretty good sized team,
you know? Um, I could probably spend the next hour talking about all the things I had challenges with.
Let's touch on a little bit. We're going to we're going to be diving into something as everyone seems to think
it's not exciting. It really is. Privacy policies and the privac deal with the privacy is actually quite exciting and
interesting. It just sounds like a boring subject. That's right. Yeah. Sounds boring, but yeah, we'll we'll we'll peak some
interest, I'm sure, if if anyone is willing to stick on. But um for as for running my agency, I would say like um
what when when sitting back and reflecting on it, there's a couple big things I learned along the way. So, one
like simplify your offerings. um like I was offering not just web design but I
was also offering social media content creation, social media advertising, Google advertising, email marketing and
I was managing people's email servers and the list went on and on and one day out of frustration because I just felt
like we we were just a jack of all trades, a master of none kind of um I counted up we were offering 37 37
different services and one of the best things we ever did was we said nope we're not doing XYZ. We basically cut
out everything except web design and maintenance. And all of a sudden, our
processes and procedures were far more easy to define, managing staff far more
easier because we set a guideline together on like what the expectations are for particular stages of the
development process and so forth. So by simplifying our offering, we standardized our our offering to the
world and therefore we were able to start generating some real money and and that's when we really started to grow.
Um I in and and to put it another way and one of the biggest lessons I learned I learned how to say no to people. Um
now now I struggle with that. I'm not gonna lie. I do still struggle with it. I'm always out trying to help as much as
I can. But but learning how to say no was the critical aspect. Like yes I
could hop into your email server and figure out why your emails aren't sending but I'm not like and and and all
of a sudden now I was focused on growing my business um and and trying to perfect my own offering. Yes, I understand not
to learn how to say no. Just a quick one here. We've got uh Ryan from Influence WP popped in. He said uh tell hands hi
for me and he has to pop in. I know Ryan. But yeah, he he was one of the first people I interviewed when I started
bringing these interviews in. Oh, that's awesome. And I'm interviewing him again on Monday. Cool. For his new project. So anyway, he says
he's got a dental appointment. He'll catch the replay later. Well, thanks a lot for popping in real quick, Ryan. We greatly appreciate it. Uh so yeah the
the telling people no that was one that I really had to learn. I can understand that. So let's move along a little bit
here. We'll start leading down the path to the privacies. How did uh you founded this company with your wife Danita Data?
Donatada. Data. Yeah. Data. Anyway, you found it with her. She's a privacy lawyer. And what led you
to founding Termagdon? I know you've told the story many times elsewhere, but hey, this is the first time here. Yeah.
Was there was there a specific aha moment for you? Um I would say it was there was like an
aha moment for me and for her and they were different. So I was sending her business for like she had a law firm
practice where she'd write privacy policies but she was charging about 5k a policy and you know because she did it
properly. She helped you find the laws that apply. She'd then research all those laws, determine all the disclosures you specifically need to
make. And she did that again and again, but $5,000 for a privacy policy did not
go over well for a good portion of my customers. And before I knew it, it's tough. Yeah, it's ridiculously priced. And and
you know, it was a ridiculously good policy, but it just, you know, when you're when you had a $3,000 site be built for you or, you know, even a
$5,000 site, paying the double to now have a policy is just not that's just not in the cards. So, I found myself
copying and pasting privacy policies from competitor websites. Um, you know, I'm sure people use chat GBT these days.
For sure. I am absolutely in that boat. And had I not married a privacy attorney, I probably would have kept doing that again and again. And you
know, in passing, I told her, I was like, you know, for the client, she's like, why why do you only send me such a few clients? I was like, well, because
everyone else would never pay that amount. And um I was like, well, she's like, what do you do? I said, I go and copy and paste other people's privacy
policies. And she's like, you realize how bad of an idea that is, right? I'm like, h, you know? Um, and uh, so, so
really the the frustration I had was that I felt like there was some middle ground be between like ripping off a
privacy policy from somewhere else and just hoping you don't get sued and and like working with an attorney and paying
a lot of money up front and then ongoing. So, and and then last but not least, I felt like we as web designers,
we would get the question all the time, what should I do for my website policies? And I'd be sitting there be like, I have no idea. I'm not an
attorney. And and so I felt like these these clients of ours, they depend on us
so much for everything digital that like we should always recommend an attorney, but how nice would it be to be able to
recommend a tech solution, too? So, so that was my motivation. I wanted a web I wanted a web policy solution that was
built for agencies and their clients. My wife, she was getting tired of writing privacy policy after privacy policy. it
got monotonous for her and she was kind of already envisioning like what if I like I feel like I could create a system
that just answer I answer a bunch of questions. Fast forward to today and term now consists of over 500
interchanging completely conditionalbased questions um which I don't think she expected at the time but
so so she her goal she wants to build the most comprehensive policies in the world. My goal I just want customers to
have an affordable solution for their small business website. Seems to me both you guys have hit your goals for the most part. Well, thank
you. Alth although with the everchanging uh landscape of privacy laws, I mean when I
started in this, there was one basic one in Canada because that's where I'm located. It was one basic that covered
out the whole country. Now we have the basic one and each province has it has
its own. Each one does it a little differently. Yep. So it makes it tough and that's
where I really enjoyed working with Hermageddon because I answer the right questions for what province we're in and
and for those of my clients that are in this in the states and into Europe and everywhere else. It's been really nice.
Now can you thinking on that there talk a little bit about how termageddon's Oh,
we're going to we're going to stop here for a moment on the name termageddon. I was wandering through some of your old
tweets there and I came across the one that told us how Termageddon got its name
and and and it basically went down to um something that it the policies were
aging your Oh, okay. So, that was a complete joke tweet, but I think a lot of people took
it as real. So, I was just messing around in my head with the name. Um, so termageddon and then if you read it kind
of a certain way, it looks like terms aged term aged don. Yeah. So then I was
like terms aged donata. So like uh terms of age data term against president my
wife. So um I I thought it would be fun to throw a little trivia for it. At any rate
tell us we had a good laugh. That was a good laugh when I tripped across it. um tell us a little bit about
how the auto updating policies work and why they're kind of essential for
Yeah. So, so I would say the I I would say the biggest thing website owners in general don't really realize yet is that
privacy laws protect people. They protect people's data. So privacy laws
regulate the collection of data. So people's names, their emails, their phone numbers, that is regulated data
regulated by privacy laws. Well, when we have websites, we typically have websites that are visible not just
across territory or province lines, but across country lines. Often, um, many websites embrace the idea of wanting to
get leads from across state lines, for example. Well, when we're collecting data from different areas, we may need
to comply with those laws. Even though we're located in one area, we may need to may need to comply with other laws
because privacy laws protect people. They don't care where we as website owners are located. So, you know,
stepping back, you know, I think it's great the fact that people have a right to their privacy. That that's something I'm not fighting against. I I absolutely
believe in that. What I find to be frustrating as a small business owner is like, okay, I have a website and now
because of that, I may be subjected to dozens of privacy laws just because someone could submit an inquiry through
my website where I collect their data. And there in lies the challenge which is like wanting to respect people's privacy
lights rights and hopefully avoid a fine or lawsuit um while also running your
business. And so the way term works is step one let's figure out what laws apply because each law defines exactly
what you're supposed to do exactly what you're supposed to disclose. So step one of term again um figure out what laws
apply because only then can we ask the questions necessary to make the respective disclosures under those laws.
So that's the essence of our tool. find the laws that apply, make the disclosures required under those laws, and then instead of copying and pasting
text into your policy pages, we give you a little snippet of code, and that's what you copy and paste into the body of
your policy pages. So now when well, at the time of this recording, we have another US state privacy law going into
effect in 13 days. We're going to notify our impacted customers, push the newly required disclosures right to their
policy pages. So you know, the benefit the term again to me is not just getting comprehensive policies compatible with
today's laws. It is a strategy to keep up to date with the everanging privacy
law landscape we now live in. And that's uh probably one of the things that helps set Termagdon apart from free
policy generators or templates or the oldfashioned way. I'll admit I'm guilty
of copying and pasting privacies policies from other that was back in the
day unfortunately because I've been doing this for 20 years now. 26 years actually. But um
um what you what happens when you when you notify the uh when laws changed that
apply because of the questions people have previously answered into it. It allows an automated system to notify
those people that hey something's changed. You got to go in and answer a couple more questions on your site.
It'll update your policy and then boom because the code's there it automatically gets new text. Nothing has
to be done. That's right. Yeah. and and and most recently we have ha we have had to ha
ask customers um subset of our customers to go back in and answer some new question because uh the latest string of
privacy laws are they're not real privacy laws in my opinion. Um they're
only giving privacy rights under some circumstances not others. So we've had to ask our customers some additional yes
or no questions but you're right once they answer those those updates get pushed automatically. Um but then we also just push uh newly required
disclosures based on how the questionnaire was already answered. So um and then there in lies the strategy.
It's a strategy to keep up to date with this stuff. Um because I think my wife is probably the only one aware on the
planet of what next law goes into effect in 13 days. Like I have yet to meet anyone else who's even aware of it. So
um but that's it right there. That's the value is the is the updates. Yeah. And that one there I I found quite
nice. And the other the other value in it for those that become uh agency partners is that once you set it up, you
can share the policies back forth which or you share them with your client so you can easily access the code that
needs to be changed or updated or tweaked in any way. I think I've had once or twice where I've had to do that.
And also that the client gets the information instead of being the go-between between them. the client
100%. I know we'll talk a little bit here about like the setting up of a term
policy. What give it just brief rundown. I've got a link that'll be in the show notes to an in to a interview you did on
um a couple of days ago name of that the admin bar. the admin bar and you you
walked through the entire experience for using Termagdon and that'll be
linked so other people can go watch it. I watched it through a couple of times because I actually found some things in there I didn't realize.
Cool. So it was very it's a very useful thing. So even if those that are current agency owners users or looking to be it go look
at this one this walkthrough because it gives you everything for product 2.0. I started with you guys right when you
were changing one to two. I think that's why you reached out with some support tickets. You came in. I was
like, "Oh, wow. How do we not test for that?" And like, but that's, you know, that's the best thing about agency partners being our customers. Number
one, they're understanding and they're really good with helping us generate the error so that we can go in and fix it up
real quick. If you want, if you want errors, send it to me, man. I'll find the errors whether I intend to or not. They just seem to
for sure. Yeah, that app was that app was three years in the making. So, yeah, you joined right when we deployed it. Uh,
which is cool. That's great. No, it was it was great. Yeah, it was it was a bit of a it was a bit of a thing, but I found it to be great once I got it
adjusted to the new interface. That's awesome. I'm happy to hear that. Um, but yeah, the way it works, um,
we'll walk you through a series of questions. Um, you know, and and really our our motto is provide exactly what
you're required to disclose. Nothing more, nothing less. I mean it it it can be that beautiful. In fact, that's
exactly what that's exactly what privacy laws want you to do. Uh GDPR, perfect example, is you should not provide more
information than what is absolutely necessary. Um and now I'm I'm my inner donata is ringing. I have my inner
donata bell ringing in my head. You know, I do want to share with everyone today. Please note everything I share is not legal advice. It's forformational
purposes only. Um none of this is legal advice, folks. Yes. Yes. Um but yeah, once you go
through our questionnaire, you've now set up our tool to understand your needs as it relates to changing privacy laws so we can notify you those changes. And
as John shared, um sharing license access is something I believe in so much. Um don't get me wrong, I know the
benefits of white labeling. I white label many things um with my agency, but privacy compliance absolutely not. Um
you should share access with your client. openly disclose that you're not their attorney and that you are using a
third-party technology, not a legal service provider, um to help them with afford an affordable alternative.
Yeah. Well, that's what it boils down to is an affordable alternative that's not a lawyer giving you the legal advice and
that it helps was one of the first things, you know, I noticed like when I went through and did my own, okay, it was
easy. I understood my company, but when you're setting up for somebody else, you can't answer the questions that only
they can answer about their company and what they're doing. Bingo. Yeah, that you nailed it. A good
example, and you probably know this for your customers, but one of the questions we ask is, "Do you make 25 million a year in revenue or not?"
We don't ask that for fun. We don't ask, you know, we don't just like we're not like sneaking on you. No, that's because
California's CPA, previously known as CCPA, um uh has that as one of the
factors for that law to apply. Um and and maybe we know that question about our client, but but there in lies why we
shouldn't be just answering stuff for our clients. And I know clients, I know they want they don't want to do it. They
want us to do everything for them, but when it comes to compliance, they should absolutely have access to their license
so that we can notify them directly about changes and all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And that that way that way they
get the questions answered correctly. Yes. Yes. Hey, let's see here. Now, how does uh
termageddon work to handle sector specific needs? Now, this is the thing.
We've been talking privacy laws here right now, but there's other policies
that are needed for websites and we're talking sector specific such as e-commerce sites or health blogs or
they have other disclosures and other policies they have to have on their sites. Like I do have clients that that
are psychologists and nurses and things like that and they're getting their policies set up and they're a little
different in how they're handled or um a client that's um an e-commerce site
which needs return policies and other things. Yeah. Consumer protection laws. So how
does Termagon help handling things like that? Yeah. So um because our price is $119
whether you want to comply with law one law or all of the laws. um we don't change it at all. Um we're just this is
the fee whether you want one thing or everything we've got to offer. Um and that's something I'm a big believer in.
I don't want to nickel and dime people just to get added protection. Um I I just want you to have it all. Um access
to all of it. And so when you get into industry specific disclosure requirements, I feel like that's where
that's beneficial where okay, I'm a psychologist and I want to make a medical disclaimer on my website where
it's like nothing on my website should be considered medical advice. um for example or health advice. Um that
happens to be our disclaimer generator. Yeah. And our tool will just straight up ask you um do you provide anything on your website? They could be seen as health
advice and you would select yes as a psychologist for example. And that generates the medical disclaimer. Um
same with e-commerce. Um along the path you'll be asked questions regarding uh transactions and if it happens online
and if you're taking transactions and you're located in an area that has consumer protection laws. We set up all
the questions necessary to make the disclosures under those respective consumer protection laws. Now, with that
being said, um and and and I think a really good resource, um is uh we just launched a few weeks ago a new page at
the top navigation of termageddon.com, which is called a coverage page, and that shows all the laws, rules, and
regulations we cover. Uh we cover over just over 120. Um just for perspective,
when looking at our three biggest competitors, it's more that laws than they all cover combined. Um, so, um, I
think that's the benefit like of an attorney founded solution. Um, uh, we're just firing them off. So, you can use
that feature to like search by coverage area. You can search by, uh, type of law, various other things. There's like
a filter at the top box. Um, so we cover a lot of industry specific things, but
we there are things we don't cover. A very good example is FINRA. FINRA is a financial privacy law that applies to
like websites that are like issuing loans uh directly through their website without talking to anyone. You know, you apply for a loan or something, we're not
we're not a good fit for that. Um, HIPPA. So, if a website's collecting protected health information directly on
the website, so most doctor websites, they have a third-party patient portal for this exact reason to avoid HIPPA as
it relates to their website. But if you are um if you have a website and you're like, what's your prescription history?
what's your, you know, um what's your ailments? Um describe your problems and you're collecting that data hopefully
through a HIPPA compliant server. Um HIPPA would not be something we cover. But when you have those industries that
we don't cover, you can still customize your policies with Termagdon. Um so you actually get you you get a what you see
is what you get editor and you can add sections if your attorney wants to add them or not. Um, so typically people
like dealing with FINRA, uh, HIPPA, they're very well aware of those laws. Um, and they're they typically don't
want to deal with them. So they don't build a website that deals with has to deal with them. But if you are in those uh situations, you can still use
termagon. But just my recommendation would be share your license with your attorney so that they can um add in any
paragraphs if they so add it and modify it as necessary. All right. Well, we got we got a quick
question here. If you if your company your website focus changes, how do you
make sure your site still has all the coverage it needs? What do they need to go back and reanswer questions or what?
Yeah. Yeah. I would say going back and reanswering questions is a smart move. I mean, you're changing your business practices. Um, a good example is what is
your return policy? Um, maybe you defined it, but now you've switched up your business. If you're changing your
business operations, we live in a regulated world. you know, in your head, you have to be like, "Oh, I'm changing
things. I should review my termagdon questionnaire to make sure it accurately reflects my new business." U for what
it's worth, from what I've seen working with thousands of customers, I would say the biggest quote unquote change I see is going from anformational site to an
e-commerce website because now all of a sudden you want to add terms and stuff. So, I I would just say the biggest rule
of thumb, you find yourself collecting new types of data, you find yourself um processing new data um that you weren't
processing before, that's when the light bulb should go off. Oh, I should, you know, do something about that. Now, with
that being said, a good example, we have a cookie consent scanner. Let's just say you forget to do that. Um our cookie
consent will block those technologies from loading until you you add them in. Uh but but but regardless best practice
as website owners is we need to just understand when we change stuff about our business we need to have that
reflected on our website policies. Yeah I understand that one. I recently rebuilt a site for a client where they
went from just mostlyformational to adding e-commerce
and we used termageddon to help add all those new policies. Cool. It was an affordable one for them
because they couldn't have possibly have paid to do all had a fair amount for
them to deal. I'm thinking about that. Let's well that and you mentioned the cookie consent. Now on the cookie
consent, how does tmageddon deal with the cookie consent? Because well, one, it's not required everywhere, but it
seems like it's everywhere and it truly is everywhere. And it originally started
because of the GDPR. They're the ones that uh forced that into the world. Uh
five six years ago I think they forced it in they mostly held it in Europe but now
it's spread across the globe. And also it's due to some issues with
California in particular the SIPA in California. Now that cookie consent is even more
important. Yes. Big time. I'm happy you brought this up. This is probably the touchiest subject going on right now in our
industry. Um so let's talk about cookie consents in general. Um, are they a slightly annoying user experience? 100%.
Uh, I'm not going to deny that fact. Does a properly cookie consent banner respect the rights of your visitors?
100%. And and and time and time again, I I see us website owners being conflicted because I'm like, do you want to offer
do you want privacy rights yourself? Yes. It's unanimous. This is a nonpartisan like everyone wants a
reasonable number. Everyone wants it, but everyone wants to collect data. It's it's it's a conundrum. I want to collect data, but I
want my privacy rights. It's like, oh, well, you gota you got to come to a center mutual.
You have to make a decision. Exactly. It's like the same thing when clients would come to us. I want the best website in the world. I I want to
compete with Amazon and my budget is $400. Like, well, good luck. Like, I wish you the best. You're telling me in
one breath it's the most important thing ever and then the other breath you've amounted $400 for this investment. Like,
you you're you're stuck out here. So, so I guess I would just say like a properly built consent tool helps ensure your
website visitors data isn't just halked off and shared with companies who've built billion billion maybe trillion
dollar companies at this point. I think some of our even in the trillions. That's so wild to say. Um and so a
consent tool will ensure that we they take what's called a quote unquote explicit action and consent first prior
to you taking their data and sharing it with third parties. Now, I will note there is already an asterisk to that
statement because some US privacy laws like California's CPA um or Virginia's
VCDPA, there's multiple other states that have this model too, is where you're opted in by default. And only if
you select deny or opt out, you are opted out. So, not only are cookie consents required, but the framework in
which it needs to be determined as well. And that is subtle, but it's important. Um and and so there there in lies yet
again h how I started this presentation which is step one find the laws that apply because only then can you
determine everything else and that's exactly what term is. We figure out the laws that apply and therefore once our
tool understands ah California SIPA applies but CPA doesn't Canada's pipeda
applies and so does Quebec law 25 and GDPR and UK DPA apply. Okay great this
is the type of cookie consent banner you need for these visitors. So, so our tool helps figure out the frameworks you
need. Um, now cookie consent banners, I've come to love them because I I understand what they actually do, which
is respect privacy rights. Um, I think I think as time goes on, more and more people will understand that. Um,
unfortunately, I think that that timeline's going to be escalated a bit. Um, because um, there is a new string of
uh, demand letters coming out of California targeting website owners of all shapes and sizes. I have spoken to
major companies receiving these demand letters. I've spoken to one person retirees with just anformational site um
getting a demand letter for 25 grand in damages. And I've spoken to nonprofits dealing with this stuff. What is
happening right now is there is a privacy law that isn't new. In fact, it's the opposite. It was made 30 years
ago before even Google existed. It was created. It's called the California Invasion of Privacy Act. And it was
designed to protect Californians from having third-party companies eavesdrop on phone calls. And when you step back,
that's actually a pretty legit law. Like, I kind of like that. Like, as a Californian, you it's illegal for someone else to be spying on you,
listening to you on a phone call. I I can get behind that. What is unfortunate is that the way t
wiretapping was defined, it was defined as a communication. And there's been a new string of attorneys, a growing
number of attorneys that are applying that to website owners, saying that if you've integrated anything behind the
scenes that is monitoring me while I visit your website, you are tracking me
without my consent. Therefore, I'm su I'm I I demand, you know, $50,000 in
damages for how offended I am or or whatever their claim is of how damaged they are. um websites using Facebook
pixel, LinkedIn tag, live chat features. Um those seem to be the big ones. Um
link with Facebook pixel being the big one. They and what I think it is and we saw with accessibility. I think these
attorneys are just going down the line, finding all these sites that have Facebook pixel, seeing if they have a cookie consent solution or not, and then
submitting a lawsuit or submitting a demand letter. Um I've spoken to one too many people who come to us after dealing
with one of these uh things and and then all of a sudden we can now help them. But um but you know, it's much better to
just get in front of it now because you know, if you ignore the letter, you're going to get served. At least so far. Everyone who told me that they're going
to ignore it, they ended up getting served and and have to show up in court now in California. Um so anyways, long
story short, SIPA is a 30-year-old privacy law that's being reinterpreted to apply to website owners, and there
are a lot of people completely blindsided um after receiving the demand letter and even possibly being served.
Um they've I've they've settled for thousands to maybe $10,000. Um it's expensive. Um and it could have been
very avoidable. Just take on privacy. Embrace it is my recommendation. So that's what needs to be done with it.
And yeah, that one there is a big one. Um so
as we move through this, we can look at what are some of aside from this one here, the cookie consent laws and
dealing with the cookie consent. Now on your cookie consents uh solution I saw
you didn't you said in an interview I saw you somewhere you mentioned that the cookie consent banner has an IP or a geo
uh uh function a geo targeting function. Tell us a little bit about how that can be useful especially if your website
happens to appear somewhere where none of this is required and maybe you can save your your visitors some grief
for sure. So a lot of website owners don't like consent banners. They want to limit the exposure of those banners. And
because you need to display a certain type of banner based on a user's location, you have to use geoloccation
for a compliance purpose. So it's perfectly uh it's a perfectly compliant approach to I need to look up your
location to determine what type of cookie consent you need if at all. Um so one of the features we offer is um the
feature only display the consent tool to the people that actually need to see it. So like um you know being ter being term
again, we display the consent to everyone. We want everyone to have that privacy right, but I absolutely understand people wanting to limit it.
I'm in Chicago. If I wasn't as privacy focused, I'd be like, "Okay, show my consent to people in Cal Canada,
California, UK, and EU, but don't show it to people in Illinois because they don't have that right, and I don't want them to have to deal with a cookie
popup." Um, so that's our geoloccation feature, which is only display the consent to the people that actually are
required to see it. So, that's a useful feature. I thought that one was a good one. Um, it's a good one for sure.
See here for for agencies doing this um that are reselling termageddon policies,
how can they use that to add value clients along the way and also help
themselves out a little bit in the process? Yeah, for sure. So, um that's that's where my heart and soul is agency
partnerships. And the way it works is we give you a free license for your own website. We do that in the hopes that you're willing to take the time to
generate comprehensive policies for your own website. Um, only if you like what you see, we ask you consider
recommending us to your clients. Um, there's no strings attached. Um, you will get a couple emails from us up
front, but then we send like two a year after those initial onboarding emails. Um, but but yeah, um, the real the real
benefit I feel like we provide is educational material. We help you educate your clients that let them know,
hey, look, I may have just built a contact form for you. I may have just installed analytics tools for you. These
are features that collect data. data is regulated. You may be required by law to have policies. You can go off and get an
attorney if you want to. You can get set up with termagon like I use on my own site or you can choose to do nothing. And and what I'm leading into there is
our website policies waiver. That's just one of many assets we provide for free um to our agency partners, which is how
do I educate my client about the regulated the website I just built them that is subject to regulations. And and
and I share that to say I would try to pretend this stuff doesn't exist for a long time. like I'd copy a policy from
somewhere else and just kind of hope for the best. And and the fact is our industry is growing up. It's being
regulated. And I would much rather be upfront and communicate that effectively. Here's what's going on with
regulations, I need you to acknowledge that I told you this. Because by doing that, if a client declines to have
policies, declines to have all that stuff, if they end up getting a demand letter for 50 grand in damages and they try to blame you for it, you're going to
have a lot of documentation saying, "I kind of told you about this, buddy." Um, and I and I can't express how important that is to get that documentation in
place because every website you build today will be facing the privacy laws of tomorrow. So, so get in front of that.
Now, I realize I didn't answer your question directly, John. Like, um, how do how do I offer this as a value ad?
Well, I would say that, you know, if I'm a small business owner and I'm trying to decide between agency A and agency B,
and agency A is telling me, hey, I understand you want a contact form. I I understand you want a newsletter
subscription. Just so you know, this is data. Data is regulated. So, you may be required to have policies by law. Not to
worry if you don't have an attorney. I have some other solutions that are like affordable for you for that um or or
something. I don't believe in making the sales pitch for a new website to be all about policies. But I do believe one or
two sentences talking about it separates you from a company that doesn't care
about privacy, that doesn't take this into account and downplays it even maybe. Um because if I if I'm if I'm
talking to an agency that I'm already coming to them because I like the design of their work. If they're giving me
insights that go far beyond design and it it demonstrates a full comprehensive understanding of the web design
industry. Um I'm going to go with the person I'm going to it builds trust. I'm going to go with the person I trust the most. So, so I think it's a trust
building opportunity um while getting you the documentation you need to protect yourself as you run your own
agency business and launch sites that will be facing the privacy laws of tomorrow. That's important. Now, now with what you
offer, I mean the assets you you give to an agency have been incredible. I mean, initially during onboarding, you guys
offer up a course that it can that can be taken that uh gives you a little bit of a certification of acknowledging and
understanding more. That was actually quite useful for me. And the other things you got, you've got
two paths on how people can make an income from you. Um, can you talk a
little bit about those two? Yeah. So, after you use your free license for your own site, hopefully you
like what you see and you want to recommend us. You get two paths you can go down. And maybe I shouldn't call them
paths because it's you can do one for one client, you can do the other for the other client. I I realize that there there but there are two paths to an
income stream. For sure. Yeah. Uh for sure. And and most most partners go down one
exclusively, but but yeah, just want to know both exist. Um but the reseller and affiliate programs, um these are the two
programs we offer to our agency partners. Um reseller is where you as a partner can buy licenses one at a time
at wholesale rates. Um, so when you apply as an agency partner, yes, a real
human does actually review your application and they really actually do send you a personal welcome email. Um,
that's that's very real. It's not AI. We've been doing it since, you know, since we started the company 10 years ago. Um, but but because we approved you
and we vetted your website, we unlock ability to buy licenses at wholesale one at a time. Meaning you you don't need to
buy 20 licenses to start getting a discount. You can buy them one at a time. And by buying them one at a time, you can then resell them to your
customers at the full retail price. Um, so there's a good margin in there to make some recurring revenue. Um, I' I
feel like it's kind of like adding a 13th month of hosting and maintenance uh to your annual plans. It feels a lot
like it's like that kind of price range. It's it's it's adding those extra two months that you give away in the 12-year
discount or 12 month. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. So, so yeah, you know, no one's getting rich off term
again, but you're protecting your clients and and you are increasing that bottom line, which is always good.
Um, the other program is the affiliate program. So, that's where the client pays. That's where the agency pays nothing. They will never pay us a dime.
In fact, we are the ones who pay them. And that's the way the client pays Termagdan directly and then we pay recurring commissions to the agency
partner for the lifetime of all referrals. Um and and and I would say that I've noticed I I'll I'll just say
about 5050 um partners do reseller, the other 50 do uh uh affiliate. And that's
just I think more so just how agencies like to run their own business. So I'm a reseller by heart. Like I want to
increase my recurring revenue and stuff. But then there's a lot of agencies that are like I want my client to have the keys to the castle and they control
everything from there on out. Like me that stresses me out. I'm like I don't want the clients having keys to anything because they're going to probably break
it. But but um those two M I just wanted to make sure we meet those two mindsets and can you know service both of them.
So So we offer both and they're nice and I actually use both myself. Oh, cool. I'm I'm I I I've got the the resellers
that I got for all of my really good clients and the agencies for the ones clients that just want to handle stuff
themselves. It's it's a a split. And also the the
the not the um why that word just went out of my head.
I just used reseller affiliate affiliate. Thank you. The affiliate jumped out of my head. The affiliate one is also one that I use to promote
through my uh podcast every week. Oh, cool. Cool. Cool. So, at any rate, those are those are all
really great. Well, let's uh wander on out of here. We've d we've dived really nice and deeply into all the privacy
laws. Let's uh wander out a little bit and talk about from your agency de days
of working. What are what is a piece of advice you give free freelancers for scaling team?
Simplify your offering to the world. I understand that freelancers is a time to learn and grow. Um so it is kind of a
balancing act, but find what you love and stick to that. Like life's too short to be, as you can probably tell, I'm a
little bit salty about it, but life's too short to be dealing with someone's email server while all you want to do is design beautiful sites. So, um, so stick
to what stick to what you what interests you. Yes, I understand that one really well.
Okay. Now another question here is where do you see the privacy laws going in the
next two three four years and how is that going to how's that going to affect
things like WordPress plugin or just website design in general etc because I know it's like you'd mentioned
California's introduced a new one. California, they introduce a new law to control
something every 3 months, I think. But 100%. They're keeping us in business. But the problem with California is it
starts there and it spreads to the rest of the United States and then spreads to Canada and spreads to the world from
there. The only ones worse in California right now is the EU as far as creating laws like that. I think they're I think
they're competing with each other really. But so where do you sort of because you're
so deep into this and you see all things and then you've got your wife Datada who is even deeper into it than you. So I'm
sure you hear about some of the crazy that uh is happening. So where do you see them from your perspective?
Yeah. So so I like looking at the past but also thinking about the future. So in the past three years we had 19 new
laws go into effect that we had to update our customers on. 19 new privacy laws. That's insane.
And and and when I started this company 10 years ago, it was like, okay, GDPR is in two years. Like, let's get prepared
for it. Now, it's like we got one every two months to deal with. Um so, so the
writing is on the wall. Privacy is becoming more important, not less important. And there in lies my my pitch
to everyone, which is rather than pretending it doesn't exist and dealing with something down the road, just
embrace it. Respect people's privacy. You know, you want privacy yourself, so respect people's privacy and everyone
wins. and and so um so I will say privacy is going to become more important not less important. Um a bill
in who would have guessed California um to stop the SIPA lawsuits got denied. So
I think SIPA lawsuits will be continuing. I think they're going to be escalating for at least another year. Um
at least another year, maybe a year and a half. And um and only then will we decide that is the next bill going to
get denied? Um I think and so that's how it relates to Termagdan like yeah we
have a laundry list of stuff we're going to be needing to do for our customers. Good nice value ad there. And then from like a personal standpoint like I would
say I'm a little bit frightened at the fact that like um chat GPT the AIS of the world like you submit data into
there and you can't get it out. I don't think we've digested that as a civilization yet because like you upload
your name your email your contact information that you can't pull that out and that's against privacy rights. privacy rights. You have to have the
legal right to tell a company get rid of my data and they have to. So how do how will that get resolved is something I'm
I'm extremely curious about on a personal level. Yeah. Interesting. Thought about that
but I've cautious in how I've used it. Yeah. You know thinking about the fact that like um a data leak could occur and
then that gets uploaded and now it's part of training models like um your fingerprints your eye identification
like this is all your stuff and we give them up. we give it up freely. That's not going to be good. I would say
privacy rights are probably one of the few pillars we have as a human civilization to like privacy is worth
fighting for is what I guess I to say. And I always like to end it with I just don't want to see us living out of Black
Mirror episode. So, absolutely. Or well, for me it's uh back
to um the Twilight Zone. I'm old enough to remember the Twilight Zone on TV, so
Oh, the Twilight Zone of course. Yes. There were some interesting episodes there. Black Mirror is basically remakes
of the Twilight Zone to me. Oh, yeah. It was 100% a derivative. For sure. For sure.
All right. Well, let's uh let's take it out on some light notes here. Let's talk a bit about you and your fun. You know, you got you've got your stuff you do to
decompress and whatnot. You have beekeeping hobby, metal detecting, you
know, you've got your your your bong, your your shot bong, which of course we'll just leave that one there. We'll
let everyone wonder about that one. I can't believe you're going to do that to your audience. They probably that's
probably the only thing that's held them on to this call. Like, all right, I want to hear about this. Maybe maybe it's a shot pong. Well, and
I I just know it was something you invented back when you're in your college days and your college crazy days and uh from what I understand, you went
to 200 un or 50 universities and 200 um frat houses.
Yes. Selling it out of the back of my car. All right. What what is what in a in a brief note, what is it exactly? Because
I couldn't actually find it online. I tried. So, yeah, I coincidentally it came up
with some friends a few days ago. I had a hard time finding it, too. It's a device like a beer bong. Imagine a
really small beer bong for holding shots and chasers where the shots stay separate. It stays in the bendable tube
and the chaser stays in the funnel. So, when you do it, the shot comes first and the chaser comes so quickly after, you
don't taste the shot at all. And I traveled the nation proving it. I'd buy the cheapest vodka in the local
neighborhood and and fill it, you know, fill the chaser with Kool-Aid. And yeah, the number one response was, "This is
dangerous." Right after they do it, they'd look at it and say, "This is dangerous." And and that's actually why I stopped selling it. I I I saw some
YouTube videos of some kids taking it just wasn't for me. I just I couldn't mentally handle. I'm just thinking back to my days when I
did things like beer bongs and uh pong uh pong bong uh pong shots and
everything else. I'm thinking adding something like that to the mix would have been really hard. Okay, now we know what it is. Let's let's talk about some
fun. Let's you you do beekeeping. Beekeeping is something I'm fascinated with. I've not had the time to make it
part of my life yet, but tell us a little bit about how does beekeeping and metal detecting. How do those help you
recharge your batteries from? For sure. I think it takes you away from your computers and your screens, which
is a constant battle for me these days, especially um at least me personally. Um
but uh no beekeeping is wonderful. You know, you um you the best my favorite part is when you have to go to the you
have to go to the USPS. You have uh to pick up your bees. Um so you can order be you order bees online like from a
good breeder. Um local if you can find a good local breeder of course that's a wonderful route to go. But we decided to
order online and uh picking it up from the USPS and all the employees like freaking out about it. That was one of
my favorite moments. Like we we had some good laughs together. Um but but yeah,
for what it's worth, for anyone interested, um it's a great hobby because it's they're bees. They're going
to do their own thing. You know, you kind of got to get them set up and then check on them every now and then to make sure, you know, you learn them through
podcasts about their health and everything. Um but it's awesome. You especially if you can set up the hive
where like you can chill outside and watch them from a distance and kind of see them coming in and out of their hive and whatnot. Um it's a great hobby and
it's way less effort than I think a lot of people realize. It is. I also need the space. I'm I'm a
little too close to my neighbors for a for beehive. I think your neighbors might not be too happy to have you load up right next to their
side of the house. Yeah, I think they I think they wouldn't like it. But yeah, other than that, well, it's great. Um I really have
nothing else. What I'm going to give you is an opportunity here where you can tell everyone where they can find out about you. And of course, all the links
will be in the show notes for everyone. And uh so fire away. Appreciate it, John. So yeah, you know,
if you're building websites for clients, um I would love for you to consider our agency partner program. You get a free license for your own website forever. Um
no questions asked. We hope you love it. Um we hope you like what you see and we hope you consider recommending our tool
where you make you can make a little recurring revenue while helping your clients get protected. Um for all website owners listening, I'm sorry we
don't offer it to you for free, but that's that's the only way we can make money is if small business owners um think, you know, $119 a year is worth uh
keeping auto updating policies going. Um, and yeah, I would love for you to check it out. Um, John sounds like he
has a promo code to share with you. Um, John gets a little kickback. Yep. The way the way Termagan works is we are
paying people like John to give us exposure. I am absolutely not paying Google, who's the reason why we're
dealing with these privacy laws. I'm not going to pay them from Google ads. So, we we pay people like John to share, you
know, education about what's going on. Um, so so um yeah, feel free to use John's promo code for a little discount.
Um, and then in general, um, you know, I know sometimes I wonder if we're conditioned to downplay privacy. Don't
don't downplay it too much, everyone. Um, we privacy is an important thing to to care about. Um, your privacy matters.
A very important thing. I recently learned how important it is. And, uh, so yeah, don't downplay it at all, folks.
Especially for your websites. All right, with all of that being said, I'm going to let my girl take us on out of here.
And I greatly appreciate everyone for showing up to the show. It's been a really great show. Thanks a lot for showing up, Hans. I appreciate it.
Roll the end credits. Thanks so much, Sean. Reminders for the show. All the show
notes can be found at wp plugins az.com. And while you're there, subscribe to the
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Plugins A Toz is a show that offers honest and unbiased reviews of plugins created by you, the developers, because
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X at WP Plugins A to Z. John can be reached directly through the website
wppproadz.com or email him at john@wpro.ca.
Amber can also be contacted through the website at wproz.com
or email her directly amber@wpro.ca. CA.
Thanks for joining us. Have a great day and we'll see you next week.
[Music]