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SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday October 11 2017, @01:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-make-them-100-pages-long dept.

The key to turning privacy notices into something useful for consumers is to rethink their purpose. A company's policy might show compliance with the regulations the firm is bound to follow, but remains impenetrable to a regular reader.

The starting point for developing consumer-friendly privacy notices is to make them relevant to the user's activity, understandable and actionable. As part of the Usable Privacy Policy Project, my colleagues and I developed a way to make privacy notices more effective.

The first principle is to break up the documents into smaller chunks and deliver them at times that are appropriate for users. Right now, a single multi-page policy might have many sections and paragraphs, each relevant to different services and activities. Yet people who are just casually browsing a website need only a little bit of information about how the site handles their IP addresses, if what they look at is shared with advertisers and if they can opt out of interest-based ads. Those people doesn't[sic] need to know about many other things listed in all-encompassing policies, like the rules associated with subscribing to the site's email newsletter, nor how the site handles personal or financial information belonging to people who make purchases or donations on the site.

When a person does decide to sign up for email updates or pay for a service through the site, then an additional short privacy notice could tell her the additional information she needs to know. These shorter documents should also offer users meaningful choices about what they want a company to do – or not do – with their data. For instance, a new subscriber might be allowed to choose whether the company can share his email address or other contact information with outside marketing companies by clicking a check box.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by meustrus on Wednesday October 11 2017, @02:52PM (10 children)

    by meustrus (4961) on Wednesday October 11 2017, @02:52PM (#580490)

    It is not in web site owners best interests to make privacy policies more accessible. More accessible, actionable privacy policies would either mean a) some users decide not to participate, or b) some monetization strategies become untenable. The status quo, where users don't ever read the policies and they are legally in the clear, is the best situation for them.

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    If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 11 2017, @03:12PM (9 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday October 11 2017, @03:12PM (#580505) Homepage Journal

    Depends on the site. We, for instance, try to collect as little as possible information and share that information with nobody (we encrypt the small amount of metadata necessary to know who paid for what that we send with subscription payment requests). It's in our interest that this policy be known.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @04:17PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @04:17PM (#580547)

      Yeah, but you guys are weird like that... :P

    • (Score: 2) by rigrig on Wednesday October 11 2017, @05:54PM (4 children)

      by rigrig (5129) Subscriber Badge <soylentnews@tubul.net> on Wednesday October 11 2017, @05:54PM (#580629) Homepage

      It's in our interest that this policy be known.

      Maybe it could be linked to a bit more prominent, like in the footer and from the registration form?

      It took me quite a while to find the draft version on the wiki (an obsolete TodoList being the first search result for "privacy policy" [soylentnews.org] didn't help)
      Even if it's just a page with

      SoylentNews doesn't have an official privacy policy (yet [soylentnews.org]).
      That said, we try to collect as little as possible information and share that information with nobody (we encrypt the small amount of metadata necessary to know who paid for what that we send with subscription payment requests).

      (or even a direct link to the wiki)

      --
      No one remembers the singer.
      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 11 2017, @07:21PM (3 children)

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday October 11 2017, @07:21PM (#580720) Homepage Journal

        Maybe it could be linked to a bit more prominent, like in the footer and from the registration form?

        You do have a point. I'll put it on the to-do list. Damn, that put us over the 100 Issue mark again.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 5, Funny) by bob_super on Wednesday October 11 2017, @09:33PM (2 children)

          by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday October 11 2017, @09:33PM (#580804)

          You had 99 problems, and the Privacy policy accessibility wasn't one?

          • (Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday October 11 2017, @10:18PM

            by meustrus (4961) on Wednesday October 11 2017, @10:18PM (#580821)

            Where's the mod for -1 Groanworthy?

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            If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @01:26AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @01:26AM (#581485)

            OVER the 100 issue mark. Since 'issue's are atomic (ie. there's no "1/10th of an issue") that made it 101.

            Off by one errors - they matter!

            But good joke anyways!

    • (Score: 2) by number11 on Wednesday October 11 2017, @07:05PM

      by number11 (1170) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 11 2017, @07:05PM (#580702)

      Yes, but this website is not a very representative of websites in general. For one thing, you Big Soys aren't frantically pushing to monetize the site. You're also probably a bit more aware of the potential downfalls (and, between the libertarians and the lefties, know that we'd pounce if we found anything).

      Of the 20 tabs I have open at the moment, there are only 2 others that I even suspect might have a similar philosophy (both are news sites funded by donations and perhaps media syndication fees of their radio and TV programs). But I can't find a privacy policy on either for website visitors (there are policies re donors, where they obviously have to keep a bit more information). I'll give an honorable mention to The Intercept, whose privacy policy, while long, is written in coherent English instead of boilerplate, and points out 18 third parties (including AWS and Cloudflare) that you might be exposed to when you visit.

    • (Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday October 11 2017, @10:06PM

      by meustrus (4961) on Wednesday October 11 2017, @10:06PM (#580816)

      And that's truly commendable! But I'm sure you'll agree that the SoylentNews demographic is unusually concerned with privacy. Unfortunately, with almost any other demographic, the reaction to a user-friendly privacy policy is almost always "meh".

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      If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?