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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.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by acharax on Wednesday July 01 2015, @04:39AM
Once your data is stored on another entities' system it's your best guess what'll be done with it eventually. Even if they'll make themselves liable by violating their own privacy policy, how are you going to find out? Hell, even if you find out they can just claim it's a leak and you'd have no evidence to the contrary. Just don't provide websites with real information if you can help it.