Ah privacy policies… they’re those little links that can be found at the bottom of websites that describe how they use various data (both volunteered and not).  While they do describe what website owners will do with your information, are they really effective?  Seriously, have you read through one of these?  Not only are some privacy policies the size of a novel, but they use language a majority of people don’t understand, and that’s both from a technical and legal standpoint.  The solution is easy: ‘dumb it down’ so more people can understand it.  The question is, is this solution probable, or will it give a different meaning to the privacy policy.

Online privacy policies need to be easier to understand and more conspicuous because few people now actually read them, said panelists at a U.S. Federal Trade Commission workshop on targeted online advertising.

While privacy policies can help users understand what personal information is being collected, they often need “college-level reading skills” to understand them, said Lorrie Faith Cranor, a Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor who’s done research on privacy policies.

Cranor suggested FTC action may be necessary to help standardize privacy notices online. “We should look at the whole picture and think, ‘Do we need nutrition labels for privacy?’” she said during the second day of an FTC workshop examining concerns about targeted online advertising.

Representatives of Microsoft, Google and Yahoo told audience members they’re working to make privacy policies easier to understand and notices about data collection more immediate.

Representatives of eBay and Yahoo said their companies are experimenting with small question-mark shaped links on targeted ads that explain why a customer was shown the ad.[more]

Tags: Privacy