Internet Safety, Help and Education : Law, Privacy

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TRUSTe

Trust Me or TRUSTe?

Customer privacy has always been an issue of concern for companies and corporations. Studies have shown that consumers feel most at ease giving out personal information when they know exactly what is done with the data and if third-parties will have access.

This philosophy is logically extrapolated to business in cyberspace but many companies have been slow in designing privacy policies explicating what is done with collected information.

So far, it has been up to the companies themselves to design and implement their own policies for customer privacy. However, this "trust me" self-regulation has proved to be inadequate; most Web sites' legal notices with the semblance of a privacy policy are sketchy at best. A recent study by the FTC showed that a minority of Web sites (14 per cent) provided any notice whatsoever of the information they collected and a much smaller portion (2 per cent) provided a full-bodied privacy policy.

As companies are now scrambling to update their sites and seeking legal counseling in order to rectify this situation, an organization called TRUSTe was born in 1997 to provide a type of paradigm for online privacy issues; that is, for a fee.

TRUSTe is an independent, non-profit organization overseen by CommerceNet and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. TRUSTe's philosophy is based on giving websurfers, or users, the power to control the dissemination of their personal information. A proponent of the opt-out - the option for users to get out of giving information that they do not wish to release, TRUSTe is committed to educating the public on their right to privacy. As of June 1998, some 100 companies rightfully held the TRUSTe brand on their Web sites. While this is a tiny percentage of the total number of Web sites in the World Wide Web, it is a step in the right direction. Perhaps the reason for such a small involvement is TRUSTe's pricing. Do not be fooled by its "non-profit" appellation; the organization charges based on the company's annual revenue. The annual fees range stepwise from $249 to $4,999 for companies with revenues of up to $5 million to over $75 million, respectively.

As would be expected, TRUSTe does more than hand out trustmarks - their branded seal of approval - to Web sites. The first step of joining the TRUSTe community consists of signing a legal agreement. This contract requires that the Web site maintain and display a privacy statement, follow the policy, display the trustmark, explain for what the collected information will be used, state whether the information will be disclosed to a third party, obtain the user's consent before publicizing information, and provide TRUSTe with full access of its database for verification procedures. Once licensed by TRUSTe, the organization follows up with an assurance procedure. TRUSTe reviews the site periodically, submits personal information itself to make sure that the site is indeed following its policy, and handles complaints and feedback from users.

The TRUSTe Web site (www.truste.org) is divided into two parts: one for Internet users, the other for Web site publishers. The users half provides tips, information, and up-to-date news about privacy online. It also provides an area to file complaints. The web-publishers portions has a wizard that creates a privacy statement based on the information given by the webmaster or site coordinator. It is important to note that this free service provides policies that contain information given by the coordinator and therefore the site's practices not verified or enforced by TRUSTe. The wizard asks a series of questions about the Web site's practices, to which the coordinator responds by clicking yes or no. The site coordinator must first provide contact information. Then, the site coordinator must disclose which kinds of information the site collects (names, address, credit card numbers, social security numbers, age, religion, etc.) and the manner in which it is collected. The final section deals with opt-out. The coordinator must state if the site allows users to discontinue further correspondence from the company and if users can remove or correct personal information that is in the database. The Web site must also display the means by which a user can opt-out.

For corporations than can afford it, TRUSTe provides a comprehensive privacy policy and invokes trust in the user with the trustmark located on the Web site. For the rest, it is important to make a privacy policy if any type of information is collected. The TRUSTe tips and wizard give guidelines that can serve as a starting point. The bottom line is that consumers care about their right to privacy and cyberspace will not reach its full potential until businesses realize and respect this.

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TRUSTe

Trust Me or TRUSTe?