Managing a privacy policy across multiple websites

Multiple websites, the same privacy policy

Organizations rarely run just one website. Marketing site, shop, landing pages, sub-brands and country domains often share large parts of the same privacy policy — but differ in individual points: the controller, the tools used, contact paths, language. Maintaining each page separately systematically produces divergence.

This page describes how to maintain privacy policies (and, analogously, legal notice and terms) centrally across multiple domains, brands and languages without duplicating full texts.

Central base version plus targeted variants

The basic pattern: a central base version from which individual sites derive only what actually differs for them. Instead of maintaining five full privacy policies, there is one base and targeted overrides — for example for a brand’s controller or a tool used on only one domain.

How TermShelf models variants technically through overrides rather than copied full texts is covered in how TermShelf models variants for language, market and site profile.

Approval and publishing per site

A central base does not mean all sites necessarily go live at the same time. Approval and publishing happen precisely per site, language or market. A change to the base can be prepared and then rolled out in stages — one domain after another, each with its own publication time and its own audit trail.

Agency and client setups

Agencies and corporate groups manage multiple clients in parallel. Clean separation by workspace and brand prevents one client’s privacy policy from accidentally landing on another’s domain. The multi-tenant model is described in the guide multi-brand legal text management and on the feature page multi-brand legal text management.

Common mistakes with scattered CMS pages

• Each domain maintains its own CMS page — changes never reach all of them equally.
• Translations are copied manually and drift apart language by language.
• A sub-brand accidentally inherits the main brand’s controller.
• After a relaunch, individual domains still point to the old version.

Boundary

TermShelf does not produce legally binding content and is not a substitute for legal advice. Which information a privacy policy must contain is a question for qualified counsel; TermShelf organizes its maintenance and delivery.