Privacy Policies Heading Downhill

ipfwadm writes: "There's a good article in the NY Times about various internet companies changing their privacy policies to allow the selling of users' information to marketers. The article mentions Yahoo and how they changed everyone's marketing preferences recently, among other companies (including everyone's favorite, Microsoft)." We already did a story on Yahoo's changes, but this one is notable because Yahoo's former vice president for direct marketing blasts the changed policy. And LorenzoV submitted a story from Wired about TrustE failing to censure Yahoo over their changes. Again.

Comments

Re:Like the MS EULA

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't help much if they change it after you accept it, does it?

changing privacy policies

[56ker]

The point is that even if you do read the privacy policy thoroughly sites have a habit of later changing them to whatever they like. Oh well - c'est la vie.

Re:changing privacy policies

[Asprin]

But. you know, even *that* wouldn't be so bad if you could simply delete your account when you've decided you've had enough. That's the real screw job here; the worst effect of which is that I am now -- officially -- PARANOID!

Has anyone here ever tried to delete an account from E-bay or Microsft? Some (Yahoo?) will let you do it, but there are usually limits and procedures that imply they're selling your info on the way to the trashcan. Gah!!!!! I usually make up fake marketing info for those bogus logins (NYTimes, etc.), but I'm starting to think I should start doing that for legitimate sites as well.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to find my tin-foil beanie.

Truth in Advertising

[kindbud]

"We value our customers' privacy," said Brian Gluth, a senior product manager at MSN, "and we have never changed a customer's preference of opt-in or opt-out, like some of our competitors have done."

Well, I'd have to agree that this statement is strictly true. They never gave users the opportunity to opt-out and assumed opt-in, and never gave the users operable means to change their preferences. With users' recorded preferences agreeing with what Microsoft prefers, there was no need to make changes to users' preferences. QED.

Corporate arrogance

[edp]

After the previous story about Yahoo "resetting" (that is, altering without permission) user settings, I sent a return-receipt letter terminating all business with Yahoo, instructing Yahoo never to send me any email, and telling Yahoo they would be charged for sending email.

Yahoo responded by sending me email from "Customer Care"! Idiots. They don't care, and I'm not a customer now. How many neurons does it take to figure out that you don't respond to a letter saying not to send email by sending email?Why do corporations think they have a right to do anything they want, even with other people's property?

What use *is* Truste anyway?

[cmuncey]

Truste, a nonprofit group financed by Internet companies that creates standards for privacy policies, agreed to endorse Yahoo's move after an extended discussion with the company. "I would not call what Yahoo did `best practices,' " said Fran Maier, the group's executive director. "To the extent possible, you would like companies to honor the preferences that were previously set by the users. But on the other hand, we don't want to tell companies they can't do something when their business strategy changes. We have to balance those things."

Let me get this straight -- Truste wants companies to follow privacy policies (which the companies themselves until they don't want to follow them anymore . . .

All that Truste ever really did was claim to police how well these companies disclosed and followed their own policies -- not dictate what their policies would be. IIRC, there already are laws about false advertising and misleading business practices. So, what is Truste and their "seal" besides a public relations exercise?

Re:What use *is* Truste anyway?

[amuro98]

TrustE is a nothing but a con anyways.

Etoys.com (remember them?) clearly violated their privacy agreement by "lending" their customer database to an outside party for a survey.

I wrote to both Etoys.com and TrustE saying as much, provided links to Etoys' violated privacy policy, and followed the convulted reporting method listed on TrustE's website.

Two weeks went by. Nothing from TrustE. So, I wrote them back and said "What about my complaint?" to which they said "What complaint?"

EToys, meanwhile, had apologized to me, and was trying to buy back my business with a measely $5 gift e-certificate.

Whatever.

I've had other companies go against their policies and my settings. They get a nice (handwritten) letter stating I'll no longer do business with them.

Re:What use *is* Truste anyway?

[steve_l]

the function of truste is to show the goverment that there is no need for privacy legislation, because companies can work it out for themselves.

As truste certification is worthless, and telcos cite freedom of speech as justification for trading your telephone data, all these arguments are clearly bollocks.

Compare to Europe, where the EU privacy laws make any unauthorised trading of customer information illegal. EU countries should have a sticker on their web sites 'privacy protected by EU data protection laws'; that'll have more clout than trust-e

And exactly HOW much is the DB's worth?

[josh crawley]

We all know of the New York Times (idiot register required) and such stff. There's also the Yahoo register, and about every other service that requres email addresses, authorization that demands your name, home adress, and sometimes asks how much you make.

Well, after about the.. well, the second time, I started punching in totally random garbage. I did this every time I needed something on that site. So what, it took a minute, but they didn't get anything in return (my data is more important than an article in the NYT). Now, as a question to slashdot, how many 'Fake' nyms do you make for idiotic register only accounts?

Even at Krogers (A national grocery chain), they and many others like it have the 'Kroger super cheap recipt card' The purpose for thr consumer (cattle) is a coupon without the scraps of paper. Kroger, and others with the same plan, use this as a way to log exactly what each person buys. Whenever I go in and purchase stuff, I demand that I have the rebate price without a card. If they force a 'super card' on me, I scribble on the carbon paper, as to make it unusable, then throw it on the floor as I walk out. They get the message.

The attempt to screw me, I take them just as bad... Now be a nice consumer and bend over.

A desperate move by a desperate company

[bigmouth_strikes]

Seems kind of desperate when I company does something like this. It is a pretty good sign that its business model does not hold what the company promised their investors.

Take Yahoo! for instance, who recently reported a loss of $50M+ for the first quarter this fiscal year. They probably weighed the bad-will and complaints of changing their marketing policy against a projected short-term income for selling these addresses. Whatever $ figure they came up with as a result of resetting it's users settings , it's probably too high.

The strange thing is that when these policies change for the worse, people not only get upset, but they also a) become more reluctant to give accurate information when signing up b) opt-out as soon as possible. Apart from being able to sell a few more - lower quality - addresses, nothing is gained. The downside is that the intended audience for the advertising emails is less likely than before to read the emails, and also the accuracy of any demographics of the audience.

I think advertisers will realize sooner than later that the apparently millions of new Yahoo! customers were people that already opted out of advertising email, and therefore are a dead market not worth the new and higher price that Yahoo! demands

Amazon is worst

[Apreche]

There was a recent slashdot article about how Amazon reset everybody's marketing preferences. After reading this article I went to amazon and reset them all to "don't send me anything unless it's an order confirmation". Just a few days ago I recieved an e-mail from them selling stuff. I followed the unsubscribe instructions and found that, as I thought, was set not to recieve it. I set myself not to receieve it again. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that it was a computer error or something. It hasn't happened again since. It's just kind of annoying that even though I check the box that says don't send me crap ever, that they can reset it at will. So I either keep visiting their site and changing it back (and when I visit their site they sell me stuff/make money). Or I get stuff in my e-mail (which sells me stuff and makes them money). Maybe next time I get something from someone I told not to send me things I'll sue. Just maybe.

TrustE is stinking, fetid garbage

[sulli]

It shocks me that journalists take Trust(M)E seriously. From the NYT article:

Truste, a nonprofit group financed by Internet companies that creates standards for privacy policies, agreed to endorse Yahoo's move after an extended discussion with the company. "I would not call what Yahoo did `best practices,' " said Fran Maier, the group's executive director. "To the extent possible, you would like companies to honor the preferences that were previously set by the users. But on the other hand, we don't want to tell companies they can't do something when their business strategy changes. We have to balance those things."

So basically Maier admitted: they do nothing. Fine. Then they should get no news coverage, and not be used as a smokescreen by these fuckers.

My experience

[Anonymous Codger]

As soon as I heard that Yahoo had changed all our privacy settings, I changed mine back, turning off the Yahoo Delivers option. Meanwhile, Yahoo announced that POP access would no longer be available after 4/24 unless you sign up for premium services for $30/year. So a few days ago I fired up the old mail client and tried to download the 5 megs of email I have on Yahoo to my local machine. Oops, invalid user name/password. That makes no sense.

I emailed Yahoo, and after a few back and forths, they finally told me that the only way to get POP access (until the 24th when I would have to start paying) is to sign up for Yahoo Delivers! Well, I want my mail, so I paid the blackmail, signed up for Yahoo Delivers Spam, and sure enough, I was then able to log into the POP server.

I don't fault them for wanting to charge for POP access - they've got to make a buck. But to force me to expose myself to spam in order to gain control over my own email is just not right. This was not part of the deal when I signed up, and is a pretty slimy way to do business.

After I finish downloading, I'll be shopping for a new email provider.

attn. Yahoo

[sulli]

I am willing to pay.

Yes, I know this is heresy on the internet even now, but you need money, and I have money, so maybe we can make a deal. (and yes, I know this is slashdot and not yahoo, but perhaps a yahoo or other provider employee will read it.)

Here is what I have with Yahoo:

A Yahoo Mail account

Several Yahoo Groups that I administer

A "My Yahoo" page with various crap

I would be willing to pay:

$5/month for each Group I administer to make it 100% ad-free

$5/month for my Yahoo Mail account to make it 100% ad-free

Some reasonable, flat monthly rate amount to make all my yahoo browsing and usage 100% spam and ad-free

some modicum of service standards (notably on groups, which is quite unreliable at present)

certified, and not by TrustE, "we will never spam you ever" privacy

I have my credit card right here, yahoo. I bet many other users would pay for no ads. Get with the program!

Re:Dyson Makes a Great Point

[Anonymous Coward]

I never give up personal data for contests and the like, but I gave my personal data to Yahoo for one reason - so I could buy airline tickets through them. Since I've spent thousands of dollars through their travel service, I do *not* expect them to turn around and sell my data. So yeah, I'm dumping blame squarely on them. (At least they gave me an opt-out before selling my data, but good lord - they've got my home and work phone numbers!)

Say Bye Bye to business in Europe

[mvdwege]

I do hope that companies like Yahoo! realise that changing a privacy policy without prior consent of the existing users can get them banned from doing business in the EU?

You see, we actually have laws that are meant to stop unscrupulous marketers selling our data to all and sundry without our informed prior consent, and you know what? They are actually enforced, to the point of the EU threatening a trade war with the US over them.

Mart

Re:Dyson Makes a Great Point

[LionKimbro]

I have a nice seat here at the corporate office for you and your ethical conscience. Can I interest you hiring you to find out how to manipulate people's consumer behavior into letting us exploit them?

Which seems more likely:

Situation A: It is largely the fault of everyone you know- your mother, your father, your brothers and sisters, your daughters and sons. Most everyone is to blame. When your mom got her Yahoo account, she should have fully research the implications of her online contracts. She should not only check "Don't send me unsolicited email", but she should also call up Yahoo to make sure that Yahoo won't try to advertise to her by phone, either.

Or situation B. Admit that we have better things to do, and that we expect- no, rely on, moral behavior from the people we do business with. That there are unspoken agreements to be followed. That even though your mom gave some information to get $5.00 off from a book sale, that she doesn't really expect, nor want, to have that information sold and resold.

Perhaps if the tradeoffs were more clearly written, your mom wouldn't have made the trade, but years of market research have shown that subtly describing is better than overtly saying, and your mom got conned. You have been conned, unless you defend such conning, and as such, carefully read every contract with a fine comb. Remember- Marketing: It's not persuasion, It's product awareness. (gleam!)

"It's right for others to be scammed, because they don't do the work to make sure that they themselves aren't scammed. They've got what's coming to them." Empowering. Indeed. That's right- everyone YOU know is a slacker. Your friend the pot head. Your friend the sports fan. Your friend the raver. Your friend the dad. Your friend the child. Slackers- all of them. If they give out their information, they've got what's comming to them.