

Privacy Icons - gry
http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/privacy-icons/

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mikeknoop
I think any "bad" actors will simply display the easier-to-achieve privacy
icons and not display poor privacy icons (this is contrary to the authors
opinion that bad actors will decide to display none at all). The issue is
consumers will start to see "black circle with green ring" and associate it
with good privacy, whether or not the site displayed all 5 or only 1 or 2 of
them.

To summarize, it is worse for a consumer to be misled about a website's
privacy policy than to not display one at all.

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ktsmith
A lot of scummy sites use static "secure site" logos which have no backing in
order to deceive the user into believing the site has some sort of security in
place. These mimic the geotrust and hacker safe logos typically but I've seen
all kinds. Bad actors have no problem misleading consumers by duplicating
common "indicators" of positive reputation and are already actively doing so.
A new set of privacy icons would just as easily and quickly be deployed to
deceive consumers further.

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tintin
Ever tried to resize them to 32x32 pix? I bet you can't even read them @ 64x64
pixels.

The idea is nice tho.

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anthropocentric
I'm wary of this. Are the bad guys _really_ going to be honest about what
icons they display? (edit: I realize I'm repeating what's written in the
article)

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biot
You know how you sometimes run across a set of icons which immediately spark
universal recognition? Ones which are visible at any size, that are language
and culture independent? For me, these don't come close.

How I'd make things clearer is mostly by eliminating the "person in document"
graphic and focusing on the rest. So the "your data is never sold" icon, it's
a dollar sign in a circle that has a diagonal slash trough it... like the
creative commons non-commercial icon. For "your data may be sold" there is no
slash. Similar for law enforcement. The others I don't have a lot of ideas
about, but I would think that "AD" (for example) doesn't translate well into
other languages. Would Japanese users recognize what that means?

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throwaway32
I like the idea behind the icons, however these tend to be judgement calls, or
at least prone to being "optimistically" interpreted by interested parties.

~~~
jbri
I honestly don't see how "length of time data is stored", "whether or not data
is sold to third parties", "whether or not data is shared with advertisers",
and "whether or not data is shared with law enforcement when not legally
required" leaves room for a judgement call.

At least, not one that would stand up in a courtroom.

~~~
throwaway32
Well there is a lot of wiggle room in those definitions, for instance

Length of data store: under what circumstances is what data stored,
performance data, explict user data, all data, some subset of personal
information, access logs, and for how long?

whether or not data is sold to third parties/whether or not data is shared
with advertisers: notice the "Besides the information exposed via on-page
advertisement" exemption, thats a very broad avenue of information sharing,
with things such as Google analytics, which if you used, under this exemption
would be perfectly fine to say "you don't share data with 3rd parties".
However, via such a service you would be sharing a very large amount of
information indeed.

whether or not data is shared with law enforcement when not legally required:
Nearly impossible to verify, and even if it was verifiable, very hard to stop,
i mean look at the AT&T wiretapping situation for instance.

~~~
jbri
> _Length of data store: under what circumstances is what data stored,
> performance data, explict user data, all data, some subset of personal
> information, access logs, and for how long?_

Note that everything in the article is about personal information. It's an
obvious question to say "Do you store personal information for more than _X_
months?". It's also very straightforward to say that "If you say you delete
all personal information after _X_ months, but store some subset of personal
information indefinitely, you are _lying_."

> _whether or not data is shared with law enforcement when not legally
> required: Nearly impossible to verify, and even if it was verifiable, very
> hard to stop,_

So what? It's "very hard to stop" _any_ privacy violation. Google could turn
around and sell every single bit of data they've gathered about you, and
_there is nothing you can do to stop them_. The whole point of privacy laws is
to provide a deterrent to such activity and to provide recourse for those who
have been wronged by it.

Similar to how the law doesn't stop burglary from happening, instead it
provides a deterrent to burglary and an avenue of recourse for those who have
been burgled.

Being "very hard to stop" isn't relevant.

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throwaway32
> It's an obvious question to say "Do you store personal information for more
> than X months?

still the question is, what exactly qualifies as "personal information", many
seemingly irrelevant things can be used to identify you, login ip addresses,
session ids, login frequency, Its a term with holes the size of Montana.

> Being "very hard to stop" isn't relevant.

I will concede this point, but uncovering cooperation can be a near
impossibility

~~~
jbri
> _still the question is, what exactly qualifies as "personal information",
> many seemingly irrelevant things can be used to identify you, login ip
> addresses, session ids, login frequency, Its a term with holes the size of
> Montana._

"Personally identifiable information" is not some nebulous term that means
whatever the writer wants it to mean, it has a pretty strict legal meaning.

"Information which can be used to distinguish or trace an individual's
identity, such as their name, social security number, biometric records, etc.
alone, _or when combined with other personal or identifying information which
is linked or linkable to a specific individual_ ".

~~~
throwaway32
>when combined with other personal or identifying information which is linked
or linkable to a specific individual

Take a look into data de-anonymization techniques, this can encompass
basically any stored information at all. This is not at all a clear issue.

(pdf warnings)

<http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~shmat/shmat_oak08netflix.pdf>

<http://iseclab.org/papers/sonda-tr.pdf>

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Osiris
The icons aren't loading for me. Is there a mirror?

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gue5t
I was disappointed by the lack of an icon to represent "data is never shared
with law enforcement."

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mcritz
In America law enforcement can get a court to issue a warrant if they can
prove just cause. You could refuse to comply with the warrant, but you'd be
jailed.

Besides, I want police using the Internet as an investigative medium. I just
want them to get a warrant. The real problem we have these days is when
companies roll over for the government and give them whatever data they want
without just cause.

