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Screen Door Awards: Uninformed Consumers
These screen door awards go to privacy policy features we found to do a poor job of informing consumers about the use of their personal information. And the awards go to... |
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| 1. No Policy Posted/Nonworking Links | With identity theft a major concern and consumers clamoring for greater privacy protection, Web sites that lack privacy policies altogether ought to be a thing of the past. Unfortunately, they are not. Sites with nonworking links are just as bad. In e-commerce, leaving a privacy policy off a Web site may lead potential customers to infer that the company 1) doesn’t have a plan in place to safeguard their PII, or 2) doesn’t want to disclose how they plan on using customer PII. Neither thought is particularly comforting. |
ovandony.com dianakane.com |
| 2. Hard-to-Find Links |
If privacy were a priority, one would expect a company to make sure their online privacy policy was easy to find, on the home page and on every page where PII is requested. Digging through site maps or searching through poorly labeled pages discourages consumers from obtaining privacy information they need. Businesses should make their privacy policies as easy to find as their purchasing pages |
To read the privacy policy at icedoutgear.com, consumers have to first have something in their “shopping cart.” From the shopping cart screen, they must then locate a small text box on the right side of the page titled "Shop with Confidence." There are several links in the box, one of which is "Privacy Policy." This policy is so well-hidden that we had to call the company and have a service representative explain in detail how to find it. |
| 3. Confusing Language |
Some privacy policies are written in legal jargon, challenging anyone but a lawyer to decipher their meaning. Other policies, while not written in lawyer-lingo, are so confusing, vague, and full of caveats that readers are left without a clear understanding of how their personal information is used or protected. Also unhelpful is the practice of stating what “may” happen, as opposed to giving concrete information. |
The 1800flowers.com privacy policy is confusing because it leaves consumers without a clear sense of who will have access to their PII. The policy states, "we may make such information (except for credit card number and expiration date, unless you consent otherwise), including aggregated information, available to selected third parties including, but not limited to, those who share or rent information for direct marketing purposes."1 |
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