The first truly honest privacy policy

It’s been a hell of a year for consumer privacy, or the lack thereof. From Facebook leaking personally identifiable information to advertisers, to data brokers harvesting reams of user information on social nets, to Google’s Wi-Fi slurping, 2010 may be remembered as the year the privacy chickens came home to roost -- and quickly got roasted.

Now Congress is debating new privacy laws and the FTC has weighed in with proposals for a No Tracking List to thwart nosy Web advertisers.  The agency has also called for sites to create privacy policies a wee bit shorter and more accessible than, say, Facebook’s 5,830-word privacy opus. Not surprisingly, the online data industry immediately began trash talking the FTC’s ideas, calling for even more ‘self regulation’ and forming yet another industry consortium, the Open Data Partnership, to avoid a Federal smack down.

The rest of the story & policy at http://www.itworld.com/print/129778.

Happy Holidays,
Aram