Writing Privacy Policies – Lessons From Indymedia

somebody-with-too-much-time writes "Privacy policies have recently come up quite a bit on Slashdot. One Indymedia administrator explains why privacy policies are so complicated to understand, shows some examples of good ones, and shows you how to roll your own."

Honestly...

Does anyone read these things? I can say though I may have read over a few, I don't do so on a regular basis.

It's rather pointless when every single one of them (of the few I've read) says "subject to change at our discretion without notification".

Does anyone not use Google (for example) because of their privacy policy, or their use of beacons?

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Does anyone not use Google (for example) because of their privacy policy, or their use of beacons?

I know this one guy who doesn't. I can't reveal his name due to privacy concerns, however.

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You mean Joe?

Privacy != Security

"You mean Joe?"

I know his password !!! ...

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Well, knowing is half the battle.

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Does anyone not use Google (for example) because of their privacy policy, or their use of beacons?

Yes. I don't avoid google entirely; their search engine is too useful, but I block their scripts, and don't use a single one of their services.

Ok ok... I do have a gmail account (along with other webmail accounts) that I use from time to time to confirm that an html newsletter I send (yes, to double-opt-in-subscribers) renders correctly, but that's it.

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Does anyone read these things?

Yes, but only forum ToS's, and even then it's so that I can explain why something's not allowed. Forums that don't use a boilerplat ToS tend to have really clear and understandable ones cause it's less of a headache if a mod can just quote the ToS when banning someone.

privacy

Here is a lesson from Indymedia on how to really protect users' privacy: http://riseuplabs.org/privacy/apache/ [riseuplabs.org]

Odd that the author of the linked article seems not to use it.