An Open Letter to TRUSTe's Lori Fena

kuro5hin writes "Seeing TRUSTe chairman Lori Fena's name in the list of members of DoubleClick's new Consumer Privacy Advocacy Board was quite a surprise, but perhaps it shouldn't have been. In my opinion, TRUSTe has done more harm than good for online privacy. I explain why in an Open Letter to Lori Fena, which she, and anyone else who cares about their privacy on the web, would do well to read carefully. "

Comments

*sigh* Don't trust those who say you should..

[Talonius]

..trust them.

How far gone is the world? Christ almighty, look around. Slashdot may or may not be the forum for this, but if we can't trust the people who strut around saying, 'Please trust us!' WHO DO WE TRUST?

The government is trying to make it so we can't reverse engineer things. Corporations refuse to recognize an individual's right to privacy. What would happen if I stuck a camera in Bill Gate's window to collect marketing data? I assure you, LAWS WOULD BE PASSED, AND RESPECTED.

Privacy, anonymity, empowerment, knowledge - my only hope is that ten years in the future when the crush of corporations has squeezed all vestiges of originality and the ability to think and decide on your own is gone, that the corporations will fall and the world will have learned its lesson.

This is how the world ends, this is how the world ends, not with a bang, but a boom..

-B

Wired Coverage

[sonnerbob]

More here, with echoes of Slashdot's suspicions.

TRUSTe and informed consent

[Howl]

I think you are giving TRUSTe a bad rap. It was never intended to be privacy police (I was one of the group of five people who formulated the idea with Lori). Our intent was to codify an informed consent model.

In a free country people get to make choice about how much information the do and don't give away - what TRUSTe seeks to do is give them background to make an informed choice. TRUSTe provides a level of confidence that an organization will keeps it's word - nothing else.

I think where people get upset with this is that it's not an "implicit privacy" model in which all info is protected unless explicit concent is given. An implicit privacy model would probably be a good thing however it's a good first step to shine a light on whatever is already there.

John Pettitt
Former CTO Beyond.com & CyberSource (now retired)

Re:TRUSTe and informed consent

[Outland Traveller]

TRUSTe's goal of making sure that companies stick to their privacy policy is an important but small first step.

By failing to take a public hard line against gross violators, however, TRUSTe has lost whatever small claim it had to legitimacy.

What is needed to avoid government regulation of online privacy is an activist, consumer-oriented watchdog group and not a corporate-oriented organization whose implemention is tantamount to having the fox guard the henhouse.

The underlying privacy goals need to be expanded as well, so that consumers can *at a glance* see how a company will use their personal data (now, and potentially in the future) without reading legalese.