Cheeky,
You're slipping you missed this one:
Web Sites Get Used To Protecting Privacy
investors.com
Date: 10/28/98
Author: Laura B. Smith
George Paxson was impressed by the ease with which he found books at the Amazon.com Web site.
So when the site asked him to fork over some personal information -name, electronic mail address,
likes and dislikes - Paxson consented.
A few weeks later, the Dedham, Mass., native checked his e-mail and discovered a personalized
note from Amazon.com. It said another novel by Tom Clancy - one of Paxson's favorite authors -
had just arrived on the site, if he was interested in buying it early.
Paxson was pleased.
''In general, if I fill something out, I always click on the box saying don't send e-mail,'' he said. ''In this
case, it was OK.''
Paxson felt comfortable about giving Amazon.com his e-mail address because the bookseller was
upfront about its information-gathering practices. The site promised not to sell Paxson's personal
information, but noted it would use it internally.
As more Web sites rely on ''personalization'' technologies to pamper users in cyberspace, that kind
of disclosure is becoming more common. Companies have realized they need to provide some
assurances for privacy in what has become a data-gathering world.
Last year, concerns over privacy had electronic commerce dead on its feet. Seventy percent of users
were refraining from monetary exchanges on the Web, according to Stanton McCandlish, program
director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco.
But groups such as Truste, a nonprofit group that's developed a ''trustmark'' similar to a UL seal on
electronics, have worked hard to change that. Truste wants to accelerate growth of the Internet
through self-policing -rather than government regulation - of privacy on the Web.
So far, Truste has 220 licensees, consisting mostly of Web sites that have committed to disclose their
privacy practices. Licensees post Truste's symbol on their privacy statements or with a link to the
statements.
At a minimum, Truste requires licensees to declare what type of information they gather, how it will
be used and with whom it will be shared.
Susan Scott, executive director of Truste in Palo Alto, Calif., acknowledges 220 sites isn't many.
''What is significant is that we have all the portal sites,'' Scott said. Portal sites are trying to provide
enough products and services to become a user's entry page to the Internet. By winning those sites,
Truste feels it is getting greater visibility.
''Ninety percent of U.S. Internet users will be accessing a Truste site within the month,'' she said.
In addition to Truste, several groups have sought to develop technical means by which the exchange
of privacy statements and personal information can be handled by software agents.
These all have come together under the umbrella of the World Wide Web Consortium's Platform for
Privacy Preferences Project. Its goal is to enable users to be informed about Web site practices,
delegate decisions to a software agent stored on their computer, or tailor relationships with specific
sites.
The consortium has completed two drafts of its specification of a platform.
''Web site personalization is taking off, and we will see more of it,'' said Joseph Reagle, policy analyst
for the Web consortium in Cambridge, Mass. ''An interesting characteristic of the Web portal
phenomenon is that these sites are all personalized.''
He says consumers like Paxson are seeing the positive aspects. But the odd thing with privacy is that
negatives may come back to haunt you.
(C) Copyright 1998 Investors Business Daily, Inc.
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