5 ms·

Our New Privacy Policy - You Own Your Data, and We Don't Sell It

35 points by olivercameron 14y ago

roopeshv 14y ago
exactly like google's terms, minus the legalese
- roopeshv 14y ago
  if you don't agree, reply. don't downvote
  - koeselitz 14y ago
    Well - you made a blunt statement that seems at the very least unintuitive without backing it up at all. The part of this policy that sticks out at me in this regard is this: >> We do not sell your data to advertisers or any third parties under any condition. We don't make any tools that let advertisers access or sell ads on your data. We don't track you. The only stats we track are aggregated usage data across the site, and we only use this information for our own purposes. Doesn't Google "let advertisers... sell ads on your data"? Doesn't Google track you? Honestly, this seems very different from Google.
    - roopeshv 14y ago
      http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/ http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/ read "information we share" section. google takes advertisers money to match, "not sell", the ads on your data. http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/ http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/ read "Your Content in our Services" about who owns the data. Google does have a very good TOS, protecting itself and also the users. The problem is no one has ever read their TOS properly. If you want to understand the TOS you have to read it in whole, and not just selected statements. I didn't have to back it up because anyone can read google's TOS because it is obvious in the face when it read it. Does that answer why I wrote what i wrote. The reason I wrote that is because I have read their TOS, esp. since 50% of my digital life is in google mail and I had to be careful when I made that choice. I make choice not based on who's using "plain language/easy to read", but who's covering the most bases.
      - vnorby 14y ago
        TOS and Privacy Policy are not the same thing. Terms of Service' state what rules the user must follow on the service. Privacy Policies state what rules the company will follow with regards to user data.
        roopeshv 14y ago
        their TOS refers to privacy policy. dont' read things in isolations and without context.
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
- jopt 14y ago
  Surely google can't be credited with not selling data to advertisers?
  - roopeshv 14y ago
    http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/ http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/ please read "information we share" section
    - vnorby 14y ago
      I am one of the authors of our new policy. Please read that part of their policy carefully: "We do not share personal information with companies, organizations and individuals outside of Google unless one of the following circumstances apply:" "We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Google when we have your consent to do so. We require opt-in consent for the sharing of any sensitive personal information." Sensitive personal information: "This is a particular category of personal information relating to confidential medical facts, racial or ethnic origins, political or religious beliefs or sexuality." All other personal data can be shared on an opt-out basis if they would like - it doesn't say anything to the contrary about this. You could read Facebook's policy and make the same comment: "We do not share any of your information with advertisers (unless, of course, you give us permission)." And, of course, one of the ways you can give them permission may be by using the site. It doesn't explicitly say how you give them permission anywhere on the policy. On our new Policy, we state the facts simply. We don't sell your data in any case, and the only time we ever give it up is when we are being forced to by law. Big companies use legalese to hide and otherwise obscure facts from you and to grant themselves rights to your data that they shouldn't have. Anyway, I'm not a lawyer and if you don't like our policy, don't use our site (as with any site). Whether or not I'm right or not about Google or Facebook's policy and what they intend, I still don't really understand how mentioning whether Google has a similar policy is relevant to the discussion at hand. We decided to write our own policy because we thought it was doing right by our users, and we encourage others to do the same. Our policy was not written to attack Google or any other company specifically and there's nothing in there that should lead you to interpret it that way.
jnorthrop 14y ago
That is really a fantastic example of proper execution of full transparency. Privacy concerns are increasing and the best way to combat that is for the company to be fully transparent. But executing full transparency in a way that is meaningful to users is really difficult when it is hidden in a policy dense with legalese. These guys are doing an excellent job of explaining what can be pretty confusing to an average user in plain and simple language.
nkwiatek 14y ago
Man, could these guys be riding Facebook any harder? Haters are most assuredly going to hate.
tuxidomasx 14y ago
Are privacy policies any more binding than terms of service? I rarely look at either as a consumer, and for most of my projects, i'm reluctant to even include them. My last ToS was "dont do anything you know you shouldnt do". I imagine popular sites/services might be under more scrutiny, but I still struggle with justifying even having policies or terms at all if they arent enforcable. Maybe its just a PR thing. Or plausible deniability for civil lawsuits and stuff.
- vnorby 14y ago
  Before we wrote our new policy, I looked into this myself because I wondered if we could do without. In the US/Canada and some other places, it's not necessary to have a Privacy Policy (in the EU, it is) depending on what your site does. However, if a user is providing you with data, it is required by privacy laws to let the user know what you will do with it, what you are soliciting from them, and other basic things. For example, EU laws require that we alert the user that we use cookies to keep sessions for users, and how they may turn them off. I would love to have left out things that are obvious but we are required to include certain sections.
kyt 14y ago
I don't think the average consumer cares about their data being sold. There is a vocal minority of users that cares about online privacy, but I don't this isn't going to cause a mass exodus from Facebook. Seems more like a publicity stunt to me.
- amirmc 14y ago
  I doubt the average consumer knows how much data is even collected about them, let alone what happens to it. Viewed this way, one shouldn't assume that they don't care. Also, it may well be a 'minority of users' who care about privacy at the moment but this may change over the coming years.
heliodor 14y ago
While this is all nice and fluffy, the company can switch its privacy policy whenever it wants and it's not going to tell you about it if it moves in a negative direction. They only tell you about it when it's a good PR move, like here. This applies to any site; I'm not trying to pick on this company in particular. I'm just pointing out that this is meaningless PR brownie points, so let's not get carried away.
- tommi 14y ago
  That's a very good point. I was looking for some kind of notice period for changes but this was all I found from the privacy policy: "If we ever make changes to our policy, you can easily see exactly what's changed on our Github page." Tomorrow the policy might look very different.
simonbrown 14y ago
The avatar image is triggering a mixed content error. It also seems strange to display a 556x720 image at 25x25.

35 points by olivercameron 14y ago

roopeshv 14y ago

exactly like google's terms, minus the legalese

roopeshv 14y ago
if you don't agree, reply. don't downvote
- koeselitz 14y ago
  Well - you made a blunt statement that seems at the very least unintuitive without backing it up at all. The part of this policy that sticks out at me in this regard is this: >> We do not sell your data to advertisers or any third parties under any condition. We don't make any tools that let advertisers access or sell ads on your data. We don't track you. The only stats we track are aggregated usage data across the site, and we only use this information for our own purposes. Doesn't Google "let advertisers... sell ads on your data"? Doesn't Google track you? Honestly, this seems very different from Google.
  - roopeshv 14y ago
    http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/ http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/ read "information we share" section. google takes advertisers money to match, "not sell", the ads on your data. http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/ http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/ read "Your Content in our Services" about who owns the data. Google does have a very good TOS, protecting itself and also the users. The problem is no one has ever read their TOS properly. If you want to understand the TOS you have to read it in whole, and not just selected statements. I didn't have to back it up because anyone can read google's TOS because it is obvious in the face when it read it. Does that answer why I wrote what i wrote. The reason I wrote that is because I have read their TOS, esp. since 50% of my digital life is in google mail and I had to be careful when I made that choice. I make choice not based on who's using "plain language/easy to read", but who's covering the most bases.
    - vnorby 14y ago
      TOS and Privacy Policy are not the same thing. Terms of Service' state what rules the user must follow on the service. Privacy Policies state what rules the company will follow with regards to user data.
      - roopeshv 14y ago
        their TOS refers to privacy policy. dont' read things in isolations and without context.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
jopt 14y ago
Surely google can't be credited with not selling data to advertisers?
- roopeshv 14y ago
  http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/ http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/ please read "information we share" section
  - vnorby 14y ago
    I am one of the authors of our new policy. Please read that part of their policy carefully: "We do not share personal information with companies, organizations and individuals outside of Google unless one of the following circumstances apply:" "We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Google when we have your consent to do so. We require opt-in consent for the sharing of any sensitive personal information." Sensitive personal information: "This is a particular category of personal information relating to confidential medical facts, racial or ethnic origins, political or religious beliefs or sexuality." All other personal data can be shared on an opt-out basis if they would like - it doesn't say anything to the contrary about this. You could read Facebook's policy and make the same comment: "We do not share any of your information with advertisers (unless, of course, you give us permission)." And, of course, one of the ways you can give them permission may be by using the site. It doesn't explicitly say how you give them permission anywhere on the policy. On our new Policy, we state the facts simply. We don't sell your data in any case, and the only time we ever give it up is when we are being forced to by law. Big companies use legalese to hide and otherwise obscure facts from you and to grant themselves rights to your data that they shouldn't have. Anyway, I'm not a lawyer and if you don't like our policy, don't use our site (as with any site). Whether or not I'm right or not about Google or Facebook's policy and what they intend, I still don't really understand how mentioning whether Google has a similar policy is relevant to the discussion at hand. We decided to write our own policy because we thought it was doing right by our users, and we encourage others to do the same. Our policy was not written to attack Google or any other company specifically and there's nothing in there that should lead you to interpret it that way.

jnorthrop 14y ago

That is really a fantastic example of proper execution of full transparency. Privacy concerns are increasing and the best way to combat that is for the company to be fully transparent. But executing full transparency in a way that is meaningful to users is really difficult when it is hidden in a policy dense with legalese. These guys are doing an excellent job of explaining what can be pretty confusing to an average user in plain and simple language.

nkwiatek 14y ago

Man, could these guys be riding Facebook any harder? Haters are most assuredly going to hate.

tuxidomasx 14y ago

Are privacy policies any more binding than terms of service? I rarely look at either as a consumer, and for most of my projects, i'm reluctant to even include them. My last ToS was "dont do anything you know you shouldnt do". I imagine popular sites/services might be under more scrutiny, but I still struggle with justifying even having policies or terms at all if they arent enforcable. Maybe its just a PR thing. Or plausible deniability for civil lawsuits and stuff.

vnorby 14y ago
Before we wrote our new policy, I looked into this myself because I wondered if we could do without. In the US/Canada and some other places, it's not necessary to have a Privacy Policy (in the EU, it is) depending on what your site does. However, if a user is providing you with data, it is required by privacy laws to let the user know what you will do with it, what you are soliciting from them, and other basic things. For example, EU laws require that we alert the user that we use cookies to keep sessions for users, and how they may turn them off. I would love to have left out things that are obvious but we are required to include certain sections.

kyt 14y ago

I don't think the average consumer cares about their data being sold. There is a vocal minority of users that cares about online privacy, but I don't this isn't going to cause a mass exodus from Facebook. Seems more like a publicity stunt to me.

amirmc 14y ago
I doubt the average consumer knows how much data is even collected about them, let alone what happens to it. Viewed this way, one shouldn't assume that they don't care. Also, it may well be a 'minority of users' who care about privacy at the moment but this may change over the coming years.

heliodor 14y ago

While this is all nice and fluffy, the company can switch its privacy policy whenever it wants and it's not going to tell you about it if it moves in a negative direction. They only tell you about it when it's a good PR move, like here. This applies to any site; I'm not trying to pick on this company in particular. I'm just pointing out that this is meaningless PR brownie points, so let's not get carried away.

tommi 14y ago
That's a very good point. I was looking for some kind of notice period for changes but this was all I found from the privacy policy: "If we ever make changes to our policy, you can easily see exactly what's changed on our Github page." Tomorrow the policy might look very different.

simonbrown 14y ago

The avatar image is triggering a mixed content error. It also seems strange to display a 556x720 image at 25x25.