Evaluating Online Privacy Policies

By Pamela S. Stevens

Many people shy away from sending their friends ecards or giving out their credit information online because of the real and imagined dangers of spending money on the Internet. Unfortunately, some online companies will share or sell your information to third parties or inundate your inbox or mailbox with unwanted solicitations. However, reputable companies, who care about and respect their customers, alleviate these kinds of worries through a good privacy policy.

A fully disclosing privacy policy should tell you exactly how your information is used and with whom they share your information. Privacy policies should be easy to find and understand and it is important that you read them before you share your personal information.

All privacy policies are different, but a good policy offers protection by implementing the following practices:

• 1. Not selling, sharing or otherwise releasing personal information to third partiesSome sites, especially free ones, sell your personal information to spammers and advertisers. The fine print of many disclosures will tell you that they will share your information with their partners, but they should offer you a way to opt-out so that you do not receive unwanted newsletters, 'special offers' or other solicitations.
• 2. Securing credit card transactions Companies should secure your credit card transactions by a SSL Certificate, VeriSign or some other encryption method.
• 3. Striving to protect minors Companies that offer adult or consent related material should strive to limit access by minors. It is a good idea to keep credit card information private, so that children cannot log in to these types of sites.
• 4. Offering an opt-out or unsubscribe option Many privacy policies will tell you that you may receive email or mail advertisements, 'special offers' or incentives by submitting your contact information, this is common. However, they should offer you an easy-to-find opt-out option.
• 5. Limiting access to customer databases Many companies will offer extra reassurance by limiting access to your personal information, by only allowing a few employees rights to your personal information. Larger companies also can afford to operate their own servers; non-shared servers are more difficult to gain admittance.
• 6. Disclosing how unidentifiable information is used Unidentifiable information may include your web surfing habits, like the ads you visit, the pages your look at or other anonymous data that is valuable for marketing purposes. This may also include how they use or whether they use 'cookies.' Interactive sites often require cookies to run all of their features, but you should be able to remove them when you are done.

Other Online Resources for Consumer Privacy Information

• Better Business Bureau (BBB)
www.bbbonline.com
• Center for Democracy and Technology
www.cdt.org/privacy/ - Data Privacywww.cdt.org/privacy/guide/ - Guide to Online Privacy
• Electronic Privacy Information Center www.epic.org
• Federal Trade Commission for the Consumer www.ftc.gov/ftc/consumer.htm
• National Fraud Information Center www.fraud.org/welcome.htm
• Network Advertising Initiative www.networkadvertising.org
• Online Privacy Alliance www.privacyalliance.org
• US Department of Commerce, Safe Harbor www.export.gov/safeharbor

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