

Reading the Privacy Policies You Encounter in a Year Would Take 76 Work Days - krambs
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/reading-the-privacy-policies-you-encounter-in-a-year-would-take-76-work-days/253851/

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uncoder0
Privacy policies are not something I am intimately familiar with, but this
seems like a problem that could be solved in a similar way to licensing open
source software.

When I look at using a piece of software I quickly jump to the license, if it
is BSD or similar I typically jump right in. I don't even have to read the
terms because I know the BSD license. I would love to have a similar system
for privacy licensing on various online services. Is there anything like this
out there?

Seems like it would not be very hard.

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zalew
I just wanted to say that. The web needs a clear privacy policies scheme
similar to f.ex. CC with clear guidelines, and even maybe fancy logos like the
CC ones. You take a glance at the image, click to see the text version for
details and your done.

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blahedo
I'd like to see the numbers for licenses in general (and particularly
accounting for how often various sites' licenses _change_ ). I've written
before[0] about how Apple's iTMS policy is long and frequently updated and
that they clearly have no expectation that you'll actually read it or even be
able to.

[0] <http://www.blahedo.org/blog/archives/001060.html>

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jnorthrop
That's a ridiculous statistic purely contrived for a sensational headline. If
you want to a more reasonable measure than you should count the number of
sites where users are giving personally identifiable information. Those are
the sites where policies should be read and that will be a much smaller
number.

Given that, I do think privacy policies can be more concise, but that likely
won't happen with out some sort of tort reform. Policies are long because
businesses need to cover all of their bases in a litigious society.

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barrkel
IP addresses are circumstantial evidence for identifying a person
(particularly when combined with timing and correlated with other sites, as is
easy for large ad and social networks to do); it's somewhat difficult to use
the web without disclosing your IP.

(Also, I feel obliged to point out your interest in this matter. You work for
IAPP, which, as far as I can make out, is an association of people on the
corporate side of privacy compliance.)

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monkeypizza
Have these been tested in court?

I am waiting for a site that puts clauses like "10% of your income belongs to
us" in their clickthrough one day.

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archangel_one
That would just be ruled unconscionable by a court anyway, but I agree in
principle that the whole practice of "by using our website you agree to these
umpteen pages of small print" is silly. Browsing a website shouldn't require
any terms of service (obviously submitting data is a bit different).

