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posted by janrinok on Tuesday June 30 2015, @05:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the you-mean-sombody-hadn't-realised? dept.

The New York Times published an article on Sunday confirming what we've all assumed — that internet privacy policies are so full of loopholes as to be meaningless. They found that of the 100 top alexa-ranked english-language websites, 85 had privacy policies that permitted them to disclose users' personal information in cases of mergers, bankruptcy, asset sales and other business transactions.

When sites and apps get acquired or go bankrupt, the consumer data they have amassed may be among the companies' most valuable assets. And that has created an incentive for some online services to collect vast databases on people without giving them the power to decide which companies, or industries, may end up with their information.

"In effect, there's a race to the bottom as companies make representations that are weak and provide little actual privacy protection to consumers," said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit research center in Washington.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @07:05PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @07:05PM (#203440)

    > I suspect there is a business model here

    Sure there is a model. Unlikely to have much demand because most people can't afford to pay for something with no tangible results. The people who can afford it probably have assistants to already do all of that anyway.