[vox] Privacy Policy Tirade - - with thoughts of improvement by opencommunity

["Donald Dunn" <vnddunn@lotteMAPSry.state.ca.us>]

I was greatly offended this weekend by a website that had a rather typical privacy policy.  I'll paraphrase:

"Our privacy policy.... ....The privacy policy may be changed at any time."

The last line takes away ALL of the preceeding lines.  Some sites make this better by telling you they will email you when they change the policy.  Regardless, you don't have a choice, and your information can go anywhere.  In response to this I emailed the company, telling them that I blind copied all my friends, which I did, and told them what I thought of their policy, and that people should not use this site.  (I'll see if the company even responds to my email.)

Now, let me do something effective and change direction. What do people think of developing some "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" for companies that have respectful privacy policies?  This logo could be displayed if a company meets a standard lsuch as:  privacy policy will not be altered w/o emailing, and allowing customers to opt out of their logon, thereby not allowing data sharing for them.  Other criteria should apply, no spamming, no 3rd party sharing, etc.  This could be developed by a standards group and use to certify sites that meet these rules.

Thoughts?

Don Dunn