CSC 379 SUM2008:Week 4, Group 1

Privacy policies outline a site’s practices for data collection, retention, sharing, and use. The privacy policy has become increasingly important with the profit potential in marketing private data and more sites requiring personal information to access their services. Laws such as the “Shine the Light” law enacted in California, and the European Commission’s Directive on Data Protection have been catalysts in encouraging sites to enact and display a privacy policy. However, receipt of a privacy policy does not guarantee that it will be read; widely varied legal terminology which the policies are written in make them difficult to understand, and their length requires much time to consider fully.

Examine the role of online privacy policies. What ethical considerations do confusing, difficult to locate, lengthy, frequently changing, or otherwise problem-ridden privacy polices pose? What recent changes have been made or do you suggest could be made to improve privacy policies to better address these ethical considerations?

• http://epic.org/privacy/profiling/sb27.html
• http://www.export.gov/safeHarbor/
• http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fcrajump.shtm
• http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/google-fights-for-the-right-to-hide-its-privacy-policy/
• http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/04/google-changes-home-page-adding-link-to-privacy-policy/
• http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/courses/privpolawtech-fa07/