Give it to me quick and simple: privacy policy cliff notes

June 12, 2008 9:11 AM

I want a quick and easy way to understand a web site's privacy policy - preferably, by someone else who knows what they're talking about. Is there a resource where people can submit privacy policies for evaluation?

I often go to a site and want to do due diligence by reading the fine privacy policy print to tell whether the site will harvest and sell all my secrets - but i don't want to put in the time. And even if i did, presumably no site is going to state the evil things they are going to do with my data in language clear enough for me to understand.

This all came up during the recent Rapleaf dustup (mini-question: can someone tell me what I have to worry about there?).

I seem to remember, years ago, that there were all these services through which people could attach comments to web pages for anyone else using the service to see. Did any of these take off, with the aforementioned effect?

posted by greggish to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

Do you know about P3P? I've crafted P3P policies for sites in the past, you create a machine-readable file referenced in your HTTP headers that spells out what the site does and does not do. Theoretically you can block your browser from going to sites that behave in ways you find unacceptable (assuming honesty and a policy in place).

Doesn't answer your question but may get you started.
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed at 9:21 AM on June 12, 2008

Also not an answer, but Firefox 3 includes a standard feature that will block known attack sites. It comes up with a page that lets you know and you still have the option to go to it if you'd like, or you can leave. Perhaps go to it in Firefox 3? At the very least if it catches it, you'll know it's a bad site.
posted by InsanePenguin at 9:36 AM on June 12, 2008

Best answer: JavaCool Software, makers of the free anti-spyware program SpywareBlaster, also have a free program called EULAlyzer.

It's pretty simple. You just paste in the license agreement/privacy policy (or click & drag) and it spits back "a detailed listing of potentially interesting words and phrases."

I've found it better than not reading them, at least.
posted by gohlkus at 11:20 AM on June 12, 2008

Best answer: It's a Canadian tool, but worth checking out is Pipwatch. Designed to be a collaborative monitoring tool about which sites obey PIPEDA, Canada's privacy law. I haven't been following it recently, so I dunno how well it's doing, but as an added bonus you can get a beaver logo on your status bar!

I guess that's a bonus. I can't tell stupidly funny from stupid, anymore
posted by Lemurrhea at 3:13 PM on June 12, 2008

Response by poster: if it's good enough for canada, it's good enough for me!
posted by greggish at 8:31 AM on June 13, 2008