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TRUSTe Decides Its Own Fate Today
Unquestionably TRUSTe is the leader in third-party privacy assurance. Its only alternative is BBBOnline, which can boast only 100 members to TRUSTe's 750. But it's having a hard time living up to its motto, "Building a web you can believe in": sometimes it's hard to know what to believe.
TRUSTe's original idea was to allow a website to display one of three icons, indicating whether its privacy policy was good, ok, or bad. There turned out to be problems with this - strangely enough, no site wanted to post an icon saying that their privacy sucked - and the icons looked too similar anyway. So they went with one icon, a "badge" that every member site posts.
All the badge means is that the site has a privacy policy, and that, as far as TRUSTe knows, they haven't violated it.
If you think this is a questionable basis for a consumer advocacy group, you're right. But the real question is how it plays out in practice. Let's take a look at TRUSTe's track record.
Round I: TRUSTe and GeoCities. In June 1998, the FTC announced - to everyone's surprise - that it and GeoCities had come to a settlement regarding violations of consumer privacy.
Everyone was surprised because this was the first anyone had heard of it. Where was TRUSTe?
Caught flat-footed, TRUSTe scrambled for a few days, then made its own announcement. It pointed out that GeoCities had begun the alleged privacy violations before applying to become a member (in April) and being accepted (in May). Therefore, TRUSTe claimed, the violations were technically not under the scope of their investigation.
But turn that around and put it another way - it was able to become a TRUSTe member even while under investigation by the FTC, and TRUSTe said nothing.
It gets worse. The FTC and GeoCities issued conflicting releases about what the settlement actually meant. The FTC said that GeoCities had "misrepresented the purposes for which it was collecting personal identifying information" (including children's). GeoCities denied the charges.
So who was right? We still don't know. Despite this being precisely the issue that TRUSTe was set up to resolve, TRUSTe refused to confirm or deny the FTC's allegations.
In a 1998 open letter, I asked whether TRUSTe's initial review of GeoCities had included any really tough questions such as "are you currently under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission?" No answer. In fact, mention of the GeoCities incident seems to have been removed from TRUSTe's website.
The organization that wanted to make the FTC obsolete was not off to a good start.
Round II: TRUSTe and Microsoft. March 1999. This was the "Global User ID" case. It turned out Microsoft had been embedding a user ID into every document you created with their software. Since they put that ID on file when you registered their software, they have been capable for years of tracking authorship of even supposedly-anonymous documents.
And don't think it's just a theoretical concern. Just weeks later, the Melissa macro virus was unleashed, and its author was tracked down using this same ID. Any technology that can lead the cops to your door is potentially dangerous technology.
TRUSTe announced that this "compromises consumer trust and privacy" (duh), but said that since the Global User ID does not, strictly speaking, involve the Microsoft.com website, it had no jurisdiction. Their conclusion: "TRUSTe has determined that Microsoft.com was in compliance with all TRUSTe principles."
In reality, Microsoft's privacy page (prominently labeled with the TRUSTe seal) also discusses online registration of software products, and notes that the "personal profile" from their software registration appears on the website and is editable from the website. And that page claims that registration is covered by the TRUSTe guidelines. For TRUSTe to claim it's not requires some Clintonesque redefinitions.
CNET's headline was exactly right: "TRUSTe Clears Microsoft on Technicality."
Round III: TRUSTe and Deja News. April 1999. Again TRUSTe is taken by surprise when a computer sleuth discovers that Deja News has been collecting data on email sent by its users. When a reader clicked on an email link in a discussion posting, the destination email address was recorded, along with the presumable topic of discussion, the sender's IP number, and if registered, the sender's personal data.
This is not what one expects when sending private email! And this clearly involved Deja's website, so there was no question of another technicality.
TRUSTe's analysis of this situation was only two paragraphs long; here's all that happened:
"TRUSTe specified certain clarifying language to be included in the privacy statement. Deja News, independent of TRUSTe, then decided to discontinue the practice of tracking IP addresses in conjunction with the mail-to feature."
In fact, the situation was resolved long before TRUSTe even bothered to issue that statement. TRUSTe's suggestion of "clarifying language" had been obviated long before by Deja's indepedent action. See ZDNet's story of May 4th, which hopes that TRUSTe "will likely issue some sort of statement...this week." But TRUSTe stayed silent for four weeks.
Round IV: TRUSTe and Microsoft (again). A wide-open security hole in Microsoft's Hotmail is breached, and for a few hours everyone's inboxes are public domain. (If you don't think this is a serious privacy violation, read the stunning anonymous tale of cracking into an enemy's email, published on Salon.com the next day.)
TRUSTe's response is to call in an independent accounting firm to talk with Hotmail's programmers and security people, look over the source code, and generally try to make sure such a problem won't happen again. This isn't a bad idea - it just wasn't much of anything that Microsoft wouldn't have done on its own. Locking the barn door after the horse is gone doesn't help the people whose privacy has been lost. Microsoft is out of pocket a few bucks for the audit, and gets more than its money's worth by being able to say that TRUSTe still gives them a clean bill of health.
How can all these incidents have passed by without punishment of any kind? It's because of what TRUSTe is actually guaranteeing. Not that any company will actually keep its data private - but that the company is not lying in its privacy assurance.
That's right. You know those privacy promises you never read, the ones that are different on every website and all seem ten pages long? What TRUSTe does is promise you that, if you had read them, you'd know your rights.
If it wanted, a company could have its lawyers dress up "we will spam your email every day and sell your name and address to anyone who asks for them" in legalese, and get a TRUSTe badge on their homepage. Would you know you were being screwed? Not unless you speak fluent lawyer.
Is the FTC such a bogeyman that we really need to sell our privacy so cheap?
When Ralph Nader was pressing the government to impose strict safety standards on the auto industry, Henry Ford II complained that they were "unreasonable, arbitrary and technically unfeasible." After the laws were enacted anyway, a decade later he conceded: "We wouldn't have [these] kinds of safety ... unless there had been a federal law."
Imagine if our only automotive safety regulations were that Detroit must abide by its lawyers' fine print!
The usual argument is that requiring an actual guarantee of privacy would stifle business. The purpose in forming TRUSTe was to keep the internet corporation-friendly, by keeping the government out. TRUSTe was well-intentioned, no question. It was a noble experiment.
But, according to some influential people and groups, it has failed.
Forrester Research studies topics related to the internet and made privacy its concern in its September 1999 report, "Privacy Wake-Up Call." Its conclusions should not be surprising:
"Most privacy policies are a joke." Forrester says corporate privacy policies are legalese set up mostly to protect the corporations.
"Few companies meet key privacy protection principles." About 10%.
"Third-party programs show little traction." Hundreds of TRUSTe licensees don't amount to much on the billion-page net.
And, "third-party privacy firms...like TRUSTe...become more of a privacy advocate for industry rather than for consumers."
(Slashdot has more on this study.)
Even the Electronic Frontier Foundation, after years of straddling the fence on the issue, has finally recognized that self-policing just doesn't work. The EFF is not just the best-recognized internet rights advocacy group; it created TRUSTe.
Yet, in an October letter to the FTC, the EFF laid down its cards:
"Creation of TRUSTe and its seal program was one such early innovation of EFF. TRUSTe was successful in several areas. ... We now must move out of this awareness-raising mode and into an action mode where real protection can be achieved. Legislation is needed in order to achieve that goal. ... we think it is time to move away from a strict self-regulation approach to protecting privacy online."
The latest nail in the coffin came on November 1, when EFF Program Director Stanton McCandlish laid out the facts on the fight-censorship mailing list:
"Our stance has basically been that industry self-reg would be worth trying, but might or might not be enough. We did the 'proof of concept' ourselves, by launching and spinning off TRUSTe. But TRUSTe was intended to be and is a separate, independent entity, and was created as an experiment. The experiment is in many ways a failure..."
(McCandlish's personal opinion is even more scathing. Follow the link to read it.)
You wouldn't know this if you read the TRUSTe website. Their homepage proudly tells you about the six-month-old Georgetown study, but makes no mention of the Forrester Research report. It tells you that the FTC supports self-regulation (based on Georgetown), but won't tell you that its own parent, the EFF, thinks the ride is over.
If TRUSTe is a consumer rights and advocacy group, why are they only feeding us the feel-good stories? Aren't consumer groups supposed to be the ones that dig up dirt and tell us about potential problems?
The money trail leads to the answer. TRUSTe isn't a consumer advocacy group. TRUSTe doesn't get its money from consumers. Its money comes from corporate sponsors, and nobody wants to bite the hand that feeds them. Besides, those corporations want the message to be one of constant calm. Concerned customers are not good for sales.
Remember the GeoCities FTC findings that TRUSTe wouldn't comment on? GeoCities had just done an IPO and millions of dollars were at stake. GeoCities' sister corporation Engage Technologies (they are both subsidiaries of CMG Industries) was a Contributing Corporate Sponsor of TRUSTe. That conflict of interest was never mentioned.
(GeoCities has since been purchased by Yahoo.)
Remember the Microsoft incidents that TRUSTe waffled on? Microsoft is not just a member, but also a Premier Corporate Sponsor of TRUSTe. That conflict of interest totals $100,000 per year.
Round V. By now you've guessed that this is leading up to the current furor over Real Networks. Real is a TRUSTe member. Do I need to mention that it's also a Contributing Corporate Sponsor?
TRUSTe said that it would render judgement on Real Networks by the end of last week. Now it's saying today.
And it's making noises like they're actually going to do something this time:
"We could take the company to court for breach of contract, since they do have an agreement with us. Or, we can forward the case to the FTC... I guarantee that the damage to the reputation of the first company that we do that to will be big."
For its own sake, it had better. We're talking about a company whose product is a Trojan Horse that secretly scans your hard drive for valuable personal data. If TRUSTe doesn't unload with both barrels, its credibility will be negative zero.
Anything TRUSTe does may have a negligable effect in any case. Corporations only understand the bottom line, and RealNetworks stock shot up 25% in the five days following the privacy debacle. With the company's market cap $1.9 billion higher than it was a week ago, how much are they really going to care about some nonprofit gnat?
We can hope. Real.com today unveiled its new website, a music portal, which investors will be watching carefully. Also happening today is a conference held by the FTC and Commerce Department for data-profilers to announce what they're going to do to protect privacy. So if TRUSTe were trying to maximize the effect of their announcement, today would be the day they'd pick. It could be that the gnat will have a nasty bite that surprises everyone.
Still - you can dress an organization up in not-for-profit clothes, but that doesn't change that it's beholden to its revenue stream. TRUSTe says we can trust them to be objective, on the theory that their revenue stream will dry up if they don't do right by consumers. So far, there doesn't seem to be much truth to that. They haven't been doing us right, but their number of contributors and members just keeps growing.
I enjoy reading about the future envisioned by people like Gibson and Stephenson, where the net is totally unregulated and a "right to privacy" is a dim memory, or a joke. That doesn't mean I want to live in that future. Europe has consumer protection laws that are, from an American perspective, astonishingly strong. Maybe we should take a look at other countries' solutions, to see if there's something we could learn.
So far, all we've learned is what fails.
- Jamie McCarthy
Really. TRUSTe has no credibility left. I really don't care what they decide about RealNetworks, and I doubt that many other people do.
It may have been a good idea at the start, but right now their situation would make a good case study titled "The loss of virtue and the disadvantages of being a corporate whore".
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
I'd say our online privacy is about to get raped hard by TRUSTe and Real Networks. I don't trust TRUSTe as far as I can spit them. Just because they have labeled themselves as non-profit doesn't mean they don't need money. TRUSTe is still out to get sponsors and make enough money to pay its employees, because of this it would be a very bad idea for them to actually take action against a company who violated a policy. Most likely it will just be an extortion case, TRUSTe will quietly hint to Real Networks that if they are willing to cough up a couple hundred grand in 'donations' they can be TRUSTe approved by tommorow. Nothing will change....
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
If this sounds stupid, please excuse...it's pretty early in the morning right now. :-/
--
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page
The government was an impediment, we would police ourselves!
Except we didn't.
The TRUSTe emblem on a web site is less than meaningless. It doesn't assure users of anything at all - its an empty, useless web consortium that is more concerned with generating good PR than getting involved, even remotely, with the protection of privacy.
Now its just a joke, and privacy violations are flagrant and numerous.
Unfortunately, the web industry cannot police itself with regards to privacy. Its going to take an outside agency with no vested interest...namely Uncle Sam.
Too bad, really, they had a chance to demonstrate that industry could monitor itself effectively, but the ended up making the case for big government throught their ineffectiveness.
I enjoy reading about the future envisioned by people like Gibson and Stephenson, where the net is totally unregulated and a "right to privacy" is a dim memory, or a joke. That doesn't mean I want to live in that future. Europe has consumer protection laws that are, from an American perspective, astonishingly strong. Maybe we should take a look at other countries' solutions, to see if there's something we could learn.
Well, to start with my reading of Gibson and Stephenson is a bit different than yours. The right to privacy as in "He looked at my email! Call the cops and let's file a complaint at the friendly Cybercrimes Court" doesn't exist for sure. However, the privacy in the cyberpunk world is completely in the hands of the individual. Basically, if you care enough about anonymity and have sufficient skills, you will make yourself anonymous. If you don't care or not smart enough, other people, if they care, can look at your data.
That's not so bad a future to live in (it's not that hard to learn to use encryption). I certainly don't want the cops to jump in any time somebody does a port scan.
Yes, Europe has strong consumer protection laws, but all they do is reassert the power of the political structure (government) over private entities. I am much more worried, Gibson's future nonwithstanding about the government power, than about the power of corporations. For example, I am quite confident of my abilities to thwart, mislead and generally disrupt the attempts of corporations to collect personal data about myself, unless I implicitly or explicitly agree (credit history is an intrusion of privacy but is a useful thing to have). However if a goverment, in the name of protecting the consumers, makes it a crime to, say, spoof personal data on the net, or much worse, establishes a registry of net users (mandatory ICQ, anyone?), it will make my life much harder and more unpleasant.
So I do have huge misgivings about the heavy and not particularly bright hand of government messing with the workings of the net.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
TRUSTe's incentives are clearly bass-ackwards. The Consumer's Union model, where the evaluating organization takes no money from the evaluated, is clearly more ... trustworthy. All I can ask is, who in their right mind ever expected this to work?
I thought that was Lara Croft's butt.
I've never even HEARD of TRUSTe, much less given them any credibility. Have I been living under a rock or something?
I wrote an article in March after the Microsoft fiasco illustrating Trust-e's bumbling inability to actually make good on its promise to consumers. It's just a feel-good whitewash organization for the industry to grab on to and say, "See, we care about your privacy."
Actions speak louder than words, and Trust-e's inaction speaks volumes.
Article link.
To use a Larry Wall-ism, this will be all over the map. I apologize up front.
Trust TRUSTe? Hah! No way! No, seriously, this real flap needs to be resolved, but there also needs to be another privacy service like TRUSTe - something more widespread, that does a large variety of verification services for a varying cost. It's sad to say that TRUSTe did not live up to it's expectations, and the RealNetworks incidents themselves are even more sad. Gov't regulation? Maybe, but keep in mind that these people happen to believe in "Security, er, Privacy through Obscurity", so they'll simply give the illusion of privacy. I think that an organization that lists its members and gives an overview of the privacy measures, sort of like a BBB for internet privacy, would be a Good Thing.
Visit
Let's begin by playing devil's advocate, and then we'll see what erupts.
Any technology that can lead the cops to your door is potentially dangerous technology.
It's this idea that has completely shackled law enforcement when it has come to dealing with computer crimes. The idea that people should be allowed to be completely anonymous in everything that they do is completely unparalleled in the real world. I, for one, am very happy that some method of accountability was unknowingly in Microsoft's products so that they could track down the author of the Melissa virus. People can and should have an identity on the Internet, and while that identity should be protected, it shouldn't be removed because people are afraid that law enforcement will be able to find you.
I also don't think that TRUSTe is as important an organization as it is made out to be in this article. It may shock some members of the Slashdot community, but I had never heard of TRUSTe until the Hotmail debacle, and even then, I didn't stop using Hotmail, nor did I start regulating my product usage by the TRUSTe symbol. I'm sure many others haven't, either.
I really think people are beginning to accept the fact that the growth of the Internet has resulted in a certain lack of online privacy. One may lament it and one may try and fight it, but the idea of a completely open but anonymous society is contradictory. Where there is a data stream, there is a way. People may have a right to certain information privacy, but they don't have a right to anonymity, and the only rights they have to what information a product sends back about itself are market rights. Somehow, I don't think Real Networks is going under because they sent back UIDs from their product. In fact, I'm happy they can track their software.
The constant attacks against companies that engage in marketing devices, information gathering schemes, and content labeling is akin to McCarthy's (Joe, not Jamie) crusade against Communists. Anything that doesn't fit into the ideal is suspect. Guess what? Direct marketers have been using these tools for decades and, *gasp* people have been able to go through your trash for even longer.
I say the Internet needs to start strengthening itself around responsibility. Protecting one's rights is important, but a certain accountability is expected with those rights. So far, I see very little accountability, both on the part of the commercial organizations with their rampant use of undocumented 'features' and with individuals who try to both use and separate their lives from the system. As with all things in life, the middle ground is where I think the answer is. Rampant positioning on either extreme just ruffles feathers and leads to no solutions at all.
they should expel real networks immediately and do a review of their other customers as well.
..are right.
If the source code to anything isn't available, the program is -- from a securiyt stand point -- suspect.
I paid lip service about this before, but now I'm going to take more closed-source programs seriously before installing them.
Is there a patch, or can I just edit/delete a data file every once in a while?
Secondly, negative zero is the same as positive zero, is the same as zero squared, is the same as zero multiplied by infiniy. I understand the point being made, but if a point's worth making, it's worth making without being dressed up to look more than it really is.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
If I read the term TRUSTe, however, I usually can not resist, but opening the firewall's configuration files, and do a quick check if there might be a hole in some rules. I then continue to check if the http/html filters are also in place, and if they do what they are expected to do.
Currently, it is completely up to a user to care about his or her privacy. Everything else is multi-mega-$$$ BS, dumped on us to keep us calm, and prepare us for acting as a good prey when it comes to the next marketing attack. Remember the movie "Mars Attacks!" (no, I don't think Bill G. is an alien :-)). But it's the same mechanism here. Innocently we say hello, and the big guys zap us with their ray guns, say sorry, and are invited for another round "It was just a misunderstanding". Ok, next round, and they zap us again with their ray guns, shouting "Sorry!" afterwards. TRUSTe is earth's equivalent of the martians...
On another note, if Mr. bad Hacker puts up an internet site with a large grey box and a popup java/javascript window saying 'you need xyz plugin to make this site rock! get it from here', how many people would actually click through and be presented with a netscape-plugin-lookalike page, maybe even submit some personal details (for updates to this great product) and download a trojan?
And how easy is it to fake one of these icons? If you were a porno site, it would make an ideal badge to those consumers worried about paying $2 for a background check.
The thing is, most people using the Internet are far too trusting, send personal data in the clear, and believe anything. They don't need a TRUSTe badge to help them do that.
TRUSTe's main problem is that it's 'service' isn't what people want or even what is implied. The article correctly points out that you can sacn someone's hard drive and sell all the data you mine to the highest bidder and get the TRUSTe seal as long as you bury a description of what you do somewhere in a 10-100 page legalese document that can be downloaded from your site.
What is really needed is a definition of various levels of privacy ranging from active violation to absolute (and protected) anonymity. Then, allow a company to display a simple icon with a rating from 0-10 (10 being the best) which links to a page describing, in plain english (spanish, german, etc) what that means. Naturally, no campany will proudly display a 0, but hopefully, if a site displays a 10, the consumer can feel absolutely confident.
The advantage to that system is that there is a lot less room for weasel words and technicalities. BTW, a 10 should include all logs going directly to /dev/null, ssl, and don't even ask who you are or where you're coming in from. In other words, very rare but possable.
Save this one to disk as a model for Slashdot reporting!
Why is it I hear the whining of scared little children calling to their mommies and daddies to help them feel safe again?
Truste didn't work? Fine, so be it. This doesn't mean I need mommy and daddy to make me feel safe again in this cold cruel world. Grow up! If privacy is a concern to you, change your habits. Truste failed? Then it will pay. It will become more and more meaningless to people. It will wither and die. From its compost something new will arise which may work better, thus evolution continues.
If there is a market for internet privacy authentication services then it will be filled.
Uncle scam can keep his privacy laws and efforts where they are needed, the regulating of himself.
http://windows.scares.us
It's not that I like getting raped by corporations, it just makes me wonder.
Having said that the first time I noticed TrustE was when the Real Networks hoopla was revealed. Dunno .. perhaps I would be more comfortable if one of the better known non-profit groups took over the role of safeguarding privacy.. the EFF or *shock* ACLU?
There's nothing wrong with a certification that simply states that a company has a privacy policy, and that they adhere to their privacy policy. Many companies have clear privacy policies which can be understood by any intelligent reader. Apple's privacy policy isn't great, but it's clear and understandable, and it's linked from their home page. TRUSTe, if they were at all interested in privacy, could audit these statements for clarity, push for changes toward an ideal policy, and revoke status if the policy is violated.
TRUSTe is not interested in privacy, but that doesn't mean that we should give in to regulation. The government will just be a bigger version of TRUSTe. The membership fees ( bribes | contributions ) will be stiffer, and the process more byzantine and slow, but the end result will be the same.
Really. Wow. Another Corporation gives up its ideals for a good bottom line. Don't mess with the paying customers. I'll bet they let Real.com off easy. I don't wonder that people think the government can do a better job, after all, they don't care about bottom line.
And I don't like Gibson.
I'm still waiting to hear from TRUSTe or Microsoft about my "TRUSTe Watchdog Complaint" filed on Oct. 14.
Earlier in the year I had requested that Microsoft not send email address in question. It took several tries before the email (newswire messages) finally stopped. Months later Microsoft's Y2K message arrived.
This appears to violate Microsoft's stated privacy policy , specifically principle #2 - Consent:
The text of the email itself seemed to contradict the policy, stating:
In other words, they reserve the right to send important messages even if you have requested not to receive them. Doesn't exactly mesh with the privacy policy, does it?
I have corresponded with TRUSTe about this issue and have had a complaint # (2363) assigned. I have not received any kind of final response, and have had no response from Microsoft.
Kudos to Jamie McCarthy. This article was well writen and researched. A touch above the usual fare served on slashdot.
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
First off, that's not a threat. If it had been a threat, it would have come from an attorney. When I read that, I see someone giving you warning that, in his opinion, you're coming dangerously close to crossing a line you can't uncross. Instead of being angry at him, I'd be thankful.
Secondly, McCandlish asserted that "[y]ou are knowingly or negligiently making provably false statements about TRUSTe with intent to harm their reputation. That's libel." Well, guess what: if that's what you were doing, that is libel, and it's wrong.
Truth is the penultimate defense in libel lawsuits; if what you write is true, then even if it's written with malice it's not libel. If you're acting in good faith, then even if you write is untrue, it's not libel. But if what you write is untrue and you're not acting in good faith, then, brother, you are in trouble and there's no way anyone's going to come to your defense.
Why is it you cited only a few excerpts from McCandlish's EMail, without citing any of your own statements to demonstrate that what you were saying wasn't untrue? The words "provably false" are, if McCandlish is correct in that they are provably false, important in that they demonstrate that what you were saying is false. The words "you are knowingly or negligiently" are, again if McCandlish is correct and you were knowingly or negligiently making these assertions, important in that it shows you don't have a good-faith defense.
You expect a public apology from a man who believes that you were acting libelously? And you expect Slashdot to rally behind you in a "damn the man!" frenzy? It's not going to happen. If you want to demonstrate that what you were saying wasn't false, or that it was based on good-faith information you possessed, then fine -- do it -- then I'll believe that McCandlish was off his rocker.
But until then, brother, all you're doing is getting ticked off because someone told you, "You're screwing up, and TRUSTe could take you to court over this and win".
Wise men pay attention when other people tell them they're screwing up. Fools cling to a tenacious belief that everything they do is right.
Warning: I am not a lawyer, and nothing in here is legal advice.
I thought "This website works best with Microsoft Internet Explorer" was the most common symbol on the Internet. Or am I just bitter and cynical?
TRUSTe has been all but ignored since they came into existence as far as I can tell. It would be nice to see a privacy stamp with credibility - but it's not theirs. Too many 'gotchas" under their watch.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I disagree. I'm tired of dealing with egalitarians. I went through 13 years in the egalitarian public school system where I was constantly thrown in groups with dumb people. Tracking? It's old fashioned and unfair. I was told that it would hurt others feelings if I went at a faster pace. Enough already. We're not all created equal. Deal with it.
If people want privacy, they'll figure out how to get it. If they can't figure it out, tough shit. It's survival of the fittest, and if you can't cut it, then you're not entitled to it. So, let's stop pretending like we're all the same.
While Gibson may be Dystopian to some, his future is at least exciting. I'd much rather live in the setting of Gibson's future than in the world of Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron.
It isn't the trust of the users to blame, but that the companies abused the trust given by their customers. We download software from the net because we think it is useful and we trust that it will do something useful. Even if it does shit, we trust it does it's shit without violating that trust. But no. Stupid companies abuse the fact that more and more people are now connected to the net through a personal computer. Personal information are stored there, and these twits greedily collect the information without even asking. Why? No asking needed! Programs can do stuff without alerting us. Stuff can flow out of our modems without us realising what exactly is sent. And of course we trust that good information is being sent. These dumbheads are not only creating privacy problems, they are degrading the mutual trust we created amongst humans. Of course it all points to the readily-available internet access. What can we do about it? We can't thrash the net and thrash years of work. We can't always create new techniques to counter such retarded programs. Having layers and layers of protection will only slow down our work, and create a bunch of paranoid users. Let's openly bash these violators and show them our trust is not to be taken for granted. (I know this doesn't have to do with TRUSTe but its all boils down to our privacy isn't it)
aw fuck stupid html format sorry about the unsightly mess/rant
BBB Online
The BBB privacy seal looks like it's slightly better than the Truste one, but not by much. They mention a requirement to get consent prior to transferring information for a particular use, but only if that use is NOT mentioned in the privacy policy as a possible use of individually identifiable info. There are also requirements to allow optout from 3rd party transfers, and some other good requirements. It still seems to be mainly a "enforce your privacy policy" requirement.
They've got a BBB child privacy seal, which is basically the same as the adult one, with the addition of requiring a parental consent when acquiring/transferring/using information about a child.
So, it looks like the BBB privacy seal is nearly the same as the truste one. As someone else mentioned, follow the revenue stream to the source, and you'll probably be able to figure out how strong the enforcement procedures are.
In the above "how strong" info, a "respondent" is a business.
As of June 30, 1999, there were 4 complaints, 3 were ineligible for various reasons, and 1 was resolved after the "complainant" contacted the BBB. No cases had been "decided".
The strangest one that was ineligible, was declared ineligible because the business's web-site did not have a privacy policy.
So far, none of the industry-funded "privacy" initiatives seems to have any likelihood to protect consumer privacy. They're still in the "enforce your privacy policy" stage.
There's got to be a consumer-funded privacy initiative somewhere.
CPA WebTrust
You get audited quarterly and have to pay for the audit. CPA's are expensive.
Before you call UNcle Sam disinterested, recognize that if a government has the power to ensure privacy, it has the power to take it away.
The first law of bureaucracy states that bureaucratic entities expand their powers to the maximum carrying capacity of the organization they control. By stating this law in the form of a single proposition and applying it to the government of a society by a bureaucratic government, and then taking the limit to infinity, we easily see that entrusting the government with any power eventually results in conceding to them complete power- and thus complete forfeiture of individual control. Thus if you concede to the government the power to protect privacy, you will eventually lose ALL privacy. It may take generations, or at least many years, but it will happen.
I value my privacy, and I am sure that you do as well. Because of this, I think it is safe to assume that this is not a solution any of us would like to see implemented. What, then, is to be done about gross offenders such as Intel and Real Audio? If we don't enact stifling restrictions like the EU 'privacy' laws, who will protect us from these wild beasts, the darker side of capitalism?
I say we can protect ourselves. We are in control here- no matter what the fool propagandists tell you, it is the individual consumers who make the leviathans like Intel able to put id's on their chips. Without a continuous revenue stream, corporations die. No matter how large, no matter how entrenched. The one thing corporations value is your dollar bills. The solution is so incredibly simple... Because capitalism works. Because if Real Audio is really afraid that people will take issue with their inclusion of monitoring software, there is no way in hell that they will include it- unless they receive more net profit through the addition than without it.
I will never buy an Intel processor. I will never own a copy of any Real Networks software. I have already taken steps to ensure that no one at my location will have Real Networks software installed (3000+ seats) because of the security concerns involved; hopefully we will be buying Athlon processors with our future workstations as well. If a few million other people do the same, then every future PHB who looks at a software algorithm for approval will shudder at the thought of infringing upon my privacy and yours.
Scudder
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
That sounds more like a warning than a threat.
This whole Real Networks thing bothers the hell out of me. I really don't like what they're doing but to be honest I'm not really worried about it.
I looked long and hard and frankly the amount of information they could get off of my machine is minimal. They could get my name, my address and maybe my phone number.
What exactly are they going to do with this? Sell it to other companies? Who cares?
No, I don't like spam. I get all sorts of crap, but its' more of a problem with my regular old mail than it is with my e-mail. I haven't subscribed to a magazine in years just because of this.
If you have information you don't want someone to have access to, don't put it in a place they can get it. I have a cable modem, I'm always connected, so that machine is a public node as far as I'm concerned. I make a point of keeping anything I consider sensitive (don't want people knowing how boring I am) off of that machine. This is the same reason most really sensitive military computers are supposed to be isolated from the public network.
As far a Real Networks goes, this is just one more reason not to install their bloated, crappy software. Yippee!
One could write a programm that registers 50 users/sec. consisting of sense-making random data. If "some" of the privacy-aware users in the world would run it, they would probably have problems.
TRUSTe is about as trustworthy as any corporate-owned scumbag lawyer.
TRUSTe does not act in ways that would benefit consumers because that would cost it it's funding. TRUSTe knows this. The EFF knows this. TRUSTe is a dismal failure. Self-regulation in a corporate-driven world is impossible, period. Why?
Because why the hell would you want to give up your biggest source of additional revenue? In today's world, information has a value - especially customer information. If they can send you junkmail till the cows come home that might land them a few extra dollars in business, then you better believe they'll do it. Conversely, they don't want to waste a couple thousand dollars mailing people who don't care either way about their products and will probably just throw it out.
Privacy on the internet? Bah - once you sign up with an untrustworthy ISP, you're already screwed. My ISP back home has very strict policies reguarding privacy. Namely - you get it. They have never sold customer information, they keep minimal customer information, they track no browsing, and send all spammers requesting email lists straight to hell.
A hype-driven company with a couple billion in market cap and no real revenue can't do that. They need money. So they sell out their first customers. So it's just a few at first. But then more and more sign up, and they're getting more and more for customer information. Hey, look, a nice secondary source of revenue. Screw the customer's privacy - we need the operating costs covered.
So, so what if you haven't given a company your personal infromation? You can still be tracked. Cookies. Static IPs. Intel's PSN which really cannot be turned off (independent tests have revealed that the pIII Personal Serial Number can *NOT* be turned off, either by Intel's software or 3rd party software. I recommend NOT buying a pIII.) and is easily obtained and tracked over the web. Gee, Intel's empowering the Internet to watch you and make money off your time. Where's my cut? Oh, wait, I don't get a cut! I'm supposed to just let these people make as much as *$3* *PER* *CUSTOMER* *RECORD* because they're providing me with some service of some sort. Uh. Right.
Of course this is different for every company, yadda yadda, YMMV. But that's how it is, and that's how it's going to stay. The government is driven by interest groups, who's interests lie in making money any way they can generally. It's not in their best interests to protect our privacy. The government doesn't want to protect our privacy - just look at Mosaic[1] - because they don't want "dangerous" people running around. Right. So the government can determine that I'm dangerous because I listen to a lot of industrial and techno.
Privacy was a thing of the past, maybe. Either way, it's a pipe dream. Echelon is real - Iran Contra, Nixon, Jimmy Hoffa, Waco, CIA, NSA, FBI, DOJ! - and privacy simply isn't. And we'll never see real privacy. Why? Because nobody except the end-users want it, and since when have end-users actually gotten what they wanted?
I say we just give up the regulation fight, and start getting hostile. Screw the sites that collect information and resell it. Screw the companies that do the same. Get the laws on our side - violation of privacy is illegal afterall - and take out these scumbags the hard way. That's the only way anything'll ever get done. But rest assured the government will intervene and say that it's perfectly legal, or rush through some legislation that makes it legal... *sigh* nice world we live in, huh? Maybe I should just go back to bed.
[1] Am I the only person on Earth who realizes that Mosaic is a trademark, originally owned by Spry - who was purchased by Compuserve - who was purchased by AOL, and is more than likely still valid? (The trademark was filed in the late 80's or early 90's more than likely, and definitely has been enforced since it's filing.) Of course, this is going off my memory, it's only 10:30, and I didn't get much sleep last night. But my memory generally serves correctly. Somebody wanna pester AOL so we can shaft these 'find the troubled kids' punks?
your company here.
shelby != ford
I have corresponded with TRUSTe about this issue and have had a complaint # (2363) assigned. I have not received any kind of final response, and have had no response from Microsoft.
You may be interested in joining a class action suit against microsoft. If so then e-mail Sleffer@home.com
At this moment I have one of the most succesful Class action lawyers in the country looking into my options for a class action against MS, feel free to e-mail me if you wish to join.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
"infinity" isn't a number in any system in which people who aren't at least senior math majors do arithmetic, so "zero multiplied by infinity" doesn't have any real meaning unless you specify the number system you're using as one that includes infinity. lim(x->inf) 0*x = 0, sure, but that's not quite what you said. So, if you're going to call someone else on it...
live in Zimbabwe (bottommost choice, pure chance!), am interested in fishing, football, knotting, and cooking, and my email address is fuck@you.
At least that what I claim everytime I have to register to some website.
Let's all be REGISTRATION denizens!
I have been intimately involved in privacy wrt: US Banking and Voting online. There is no business case to protect privacy in the corporate view. People of their own free will exchange privacy for access, discounts, rewards and membership. Most of these transactions serve only the legal requirement of acquiescence and are of little economic value. There are no successful business models which prove people will *pay* for privacy. Contrary to popular myth the Constitution does not grant a right to privacy.
Truste is what people expect, albeit insufficient and the same value as a GreenStamp.
The RealNetworks incident is bringing up the need for legislation. Such legislation arguably already exists(I'm sure RN's behavior can qualify as a form of Wire Fraud), but it's not really necessary.
The industry can police itself, if it's willing to do so. It merely needs what the government has traditionally provided: Cost.
In economic terms, TrustE could have been predicted to be irrelevant. Consider: Online organizations are almost always desperate for new lines of revenue, due to their ridiculously overstated stock valuations. (In the criminology world, that's called motive.) They're also tied to the hip to advertisers, who are often their primary source of income. (In walks Opportunity.) Aggregation of mass quantities of identifiable information, continually up to date and temporarily difficult to obtain elsewhere, proposes an attractive source of money for companies like RealNetworks.
However, the lack of a direct money trail doesn't immediately, necessarily, or even probably exonerate RealNetworks. It is more than likely that more than a few large media companies agreed to work with RealNetworks in return for "under the table" statistics on the spread(and contraction) of MP3s per Server per State/College/User. Situations like this are perfect for creating plausable deniability, and considering the strength of the Microsoft threat against RealNetworks(nothing short of total annihilation!), it wouldn't be surprising at all if RealNetworks felt blackmailed into violating their customers in such an obscene manner.
But then, Blackmail usually implies risk v. risk calculations--in other words, RealNetworks had to feel that they'd experience some tremendous loss by favoring their corporate partners above the trust of their customers. Thus the genius of sponsoring TrustE. TrustE was practically made-to-order for corporations--whatever the privacy policy happened to say was OK by them, and since they were dependant on the very companies they were supposed to attack for their very existence, the organization was forced to bend over backwards to avoid conflict with their sponsors.
As I argued in this post, privacy policies can be twisted to say anything, and not obviously at that. Truly an ideal situation for companies like RealNetworks.
Add in the fact that the same companies who would demand privacy violations are those same companies who could get glowing stories of new privacy protections being quickly implemented, which of course had a nice +25% impact on stock price(ooh, even more ridiculous stock valuation!) when it finally happened, took what should have been a blackmail situation and converted it into a beautiful example of a Win/Win, with the public absorbing the cost.
But why? In the covert war against MP3, intelligence and co-option is everything. RealNetworks placing itself as the source for (much lower quality 96kbps) MP3s gives them the ability to control who encodes what, using which standard, and reporting back the ever valuable percentage of the population complying.
After all, knowing when to lower the boom on non-compliant MP3s, mainly by releasing players that suddenly refuse to play the finally-rare noncompliant MP3, is completely tied to knowing how many people are in violation.
So the strategy is exposed. The question is, what could have been done in advance to prevent such a situation? Legislation isn't necessarily the answer; laws aren't really that much more than a societally enforced contract with the government. Weak laws(which we already have in abundance) wouldn't have prevented this plan from going into effect.
The simple answer is that TrustE needs to make money for busting violators. Possibly that means a bounty system, paid by a FTC fund. However it works, right now TrustE makes money by pleasing its sponsors.
That not only has to change--it's going to.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
While it wouldn't be worthwhile for an individual to sue, maybe class-action suits against sites that violate their own privacy statements would serve to inject some cluefulness into these corporate behemoths.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
eBay posted a "we will never spam you or share your address with third parties" privacy policy.
They gave a list of "inactive" customers to a third party, and spammed them all with a "look how cool our site is" message.
TrustE has not yanked their logo.
(More details available upon request, or read discussion in news.admin.net-abuse.email.)
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Privacy and anonymity are two different things. You can have both, neither, or either without the other.
Your medical records are not anonymous, but they are private.
A /. posting by an AC is anonymous, but not private. In this case, the lack of privacy is voluntary (and desired).
Spam-mail is one example of your privacy being invaded by someone who doesn't know (and doesn't even care) who you are.
Your personal privacy can even be violated publically by someone else while retaining your anonymity intact. An example of this is the growing trade in hidden-camera and upskirt videos. See, for example, this article in Salon Magazine.
Relying on anonymity is a poor second-best to having your privacy respected.
Need I say more? Ok... I want to see real networks burn. The only way to stop these companies, is to litigate one of them into oblivion. They fear nothing else and have no moral perogative whatsoever. Burn real networks into oblivion and watch how quickly the rest of these motherfuckers fall into line. There is no other way. Attacks on privacy have gone unhindered and has left these co's feeling invincible. It's time to shatter this illusion. Lets start with Real Networks. I won't miss them. And then as an added bonus, maybe a non-raping audio standard will fill the smoking hole RN has left. Lets not tolerate this anymore! If we all scream bloody murder for long enough, Real Networks will burn. Companies bully us around because we never show backbone. Like a neihborhood bully who tormented you right up to the day you planted your foot up his ass. We *have muscle*. It's time to show it..It's time to kick some ass and show these corporate fuckers what happens when they let the genie out of the bottle. I'm fucking pissed!
If it was, Real, Microcrap, and others would feel the bite of consumer boycott, no AAA needed. Consumers are cattle who deserve what they get.
Every autoshop that ever ripped me off has ASE cert for all their mechanics. I logged complaints. Nothing chaned. No one's cert was pulled. What's the point of a certification body if no one enforces the rules?
> "Contrary to popular myth the Constitution does not grant a right to privacy."
Actually, Constitutional Law combined with Case Law (Miranda case) makes a strong argument for the right to privacy.
The First Amendment grants people the freedom of speech.
The Miranda Case grants people the right to remain silent.
It seems to me that:
The right to speak with those you wish to speak
+ The right to remain silent with those you do not wish to speak
= Right to Privacy
--- Generation X: The first generation to have SIG lines inferior to their parents... ---
The problem with deliberately building any sort of tracking ability into software is that anyone can easily manipulate it to implicate anyone else. And if it's this broken from day one, then relying on it for any sort of legal action is pure fallacy and utterly ludicrous. It creates more problems than it solves.
Registrant:
Progressive Networks, Inc (REAL7-DOM)
[...]
$ whois "progressive networks"@arin.net
PROGRESSIVE NETWORKS (NETBLK-CW-204-71-154) CW-204-71-154 204.71.154.0 - 204.71.154.255
PROGRESSIVE NETWORKS (NETBLK-CW-208-147-88) CW-208-147-88 208.147.88.0 - 208.147.88.255
PROGRESSIVE NETWORKS (NETBLK-CW-208-147-89) CW-208-147-89 208.147.89.0 - 208.147.95.255
Progressive Networks (ASN-PROGNET) PROGNET 5054 Progressive Networks, Inc (REAL7-DOM) (NETBLK-ABOVE-REAL) ABOVE-REAL 209.66.98.16 - 209.66.98.23
[...]
$ ipchains -A output -d 204.71.154.0/24 -j DENY
$ ipchains -A output -d 208.147.88.0/24 -j DENY
$ ipchains -A output -d 208.147.89.0/24 -j DENY
$ ipchains -A output -d 209.66.98.16/255.255.255.232 -j DENY
$ echo All is well.
This quietly blocks all packets bound for any of Real's IP subnets. Snooped info about you being fired off to Real's servers is quietly dropped on the floor. No error message. No explicit packet rejections to scare the Real Player. The software will assume simple internet problems are the cause. Although, I assume it wouldn't report an error to the user anyway. I mean, what's it gonna say? "Alert! Unable to spy on you. [RETRY NOW] [TRY AGAIN LATER]"? Yeah, right. If you want to see the snoop attempts show up in /var/log/messages, append a -l to the above commands. This also disables the annoying "you need to upgrade your player now!" messages since it can no longer check. This works for my linux box and for the Win98 machine (since it gateways through the linux box).
ACE has to protect it's bottom line, which is to make money. I imagine, consumer protection was
dropped entirely from the equation a long time
ago.
Look at United Way. United way, the "charity" with multimillionaire management. I imagine helping
the poor was dropped from the equation a long
time ago.
TRUST-e. Now brags about their "page impressions"
and could care less about any privacy issues that
interferes with the cash stream flowing in from
privacy-attacking companies. Privacy was dropped
from the equation entirely.
See a trend? Can we ever trust for-profit advocacy groups? Any that I've ever seen have eventually
joined sides with whatever dark-force they were
supposed to be protecting people against.
Trust-e is simply another bait and switch in
the "protection" industry, whose sole purpose
is to make lots and lots of money and nothing
else.
Someone please tell me Trust-e has sold
demogrphic info. That would seal this issue
once and for all.
Sorry about the formatting. What I type in this
box never looks like what ends up on the page.
I suspect there's some hidden formatting tags that are getting moved around.
I can't see them... so *shrug*.
Truste definitely doesn't work to well, but I'm still vehemently opposed to someone bringing in federal regulation. It's very easy to preserve your privacy online, as long as you pay attention.
First of all, if you are asked for a required address, and you're not ordering a product to be mailed to you, your adress is "123 FakeAddress Dr."
If, on the other hand, you are ordering something online, read the freakin' privacy agreement. I've read them, and they aren't that hard to understand. Also, the parts about selling your personal information are almost always clearly labeled.
The simple fact of the matter is that asking the government to step in simply because you are lazy is hypocritical and unfair to others. Government regulation is designed for lazy people, so if you want freedom online, you have to work for it. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Personally, I'm willing to spend an extra five minutes of my time reading an agreement if it means keeping the government out of the one remaining bastion of free speech and capitalism in the world.
-- I don't really have anything useful to say. ~Tuts
Damnit, I was going to cut and paste some of your
text but the formatting got fscked after getting
digested by this little box.
Anyway, one thing you have missed is that
deep-pocket organizations are the government .
The Lobby makes the laws. The Lobby is what
runs this country. whose in the lobby? Guess
who! (*hint* it's not me and you.)
Corporations trade members of our governemt
like Pokeman cards. He who has the most money, gets the "rares".
What to do? Seperate the two just like church
and State. If this doesn't happen, all is lost.
Here's a quote:
"After an initial inquiry, TRUSTe found that because the transmission of user data through RealNetworks' RealJukebox program did not involve collection of data on the RealNetworks Web site, the privacy incident was outside of the scope of TRUSTe's current privacy seal program," said Lori Fena, TRUSTe's Chairman.
I'm kinda gettin a case of Deja-Vu...
I don't really see a problem with the described incident. I see a Y2K warning as on a par with a Product Recall Notice or similar "Important Notice" that a good argument can be made for disiminating as widely as possible to every customer on file. If for no other reason than self defense against the lawsuits likely to let fly next year.
Not a lot of pure Black & White in the real world, and this is one of those grey areas. Now if I had dropped a subscription to their mailing lists and got a pitch for W2K I'd be pissed.
Damn, I feel icky after defending M$... better go take another shower now.
Democrat delenda est
From http://www.truste.org/about/about_software.html:
For Immediate Release
Contact Information:
Dave Steer
Director of Communications
TRUSTe
408/342-1943
415.260.9669 (mobile)
TRUSTe & REALNETWORKS COLLABORATE TO CLOSE PRIVACY GAP
Pilot Privacy Seal Program for Software Applications Initiated
Cupertino, CA, November 8, 1999 - TRUSTe, the leading online privacy seal program, today announced that it is expanding its commitment to supporting consumer trust and confidence in a networked environment. The recent incident involving RealNetworks prompted a broad set of solutions for addressing consumer concerns about personally identifiable information.
Today's announcement follows reports that RealNetworks' RealJukebox product transmitted globally unique identifiers (GUID) to RealNetworks via the Internet. In response, TRUSTe immediately sought to uncover the nature of the reported data collection practice and gauge the scope of the RealNetworks situation.
"After an initial inquiry, TRUSTe found that because the transmission of user data through RealNetworks' RealJukebox program did not involve collection of data on the RealNetworks Web site, the privacy incident was outside of the scope of TRUSTe's current privacy seal program," said Lori Fena, TRUSTe's Chairman. "However, because consumer trust is more important than legal technicalities for both TRUSTe and RealNetworks, we have worked together to find a series of appropriate solutions."
"RealNetworks recognizes the importance of protecting consumer privacy, and apologized to its customers for not being clear enough about the data being transmitted by the use of RealJukebox. Issues associated with use of GUIDs in consumer software products should be of concern to the entire Web community," added Bob Lewin, Executive Director of TRUSTe. "That said, TRUSTe recommended a 5-point program to RealNetworks for restoring the trust and confidence of its customers."
RealNetworks, working closely with TRUSTe, will implement a series of changes to its current privacy practices. Beginning immediately, RealNetworks will:
Conduct Third Party Audit - RealNetworks has agreed to conduct an outside audit of its privacy practices to ensure that privacy issues raised regarding RealJukebox have been resolved. In particular, the audit will verify that RealJukebox GUIDs have been disabled and are no longer associated with email or other registration data. TRUSTe and one of the major auditing firms familiar with the fair information requirements of TRUSTe's program will conduct the audit. A report will be issued upon the conclusion of the audit process.
Privacy Statement - The Web privacy statement that has been certified by TRUSTe will be modified to inform consumers that the audit described above is underway.
Opt-In - RealNetworks has already announced that it has disabled GUIDs in RealJukebox, and beginning with today's release of RealPlayer 7, RealNetworks will anonymize GUIDs and require consumers to opt-in to enable the use of this feature.
Privacy Officer - RealNetworks will identify a key privacy officer who is responsible for handling the company's privacy practices and policies, customer privacy complaints, and who will serve as a liaison to TRUSTe.
Consumer Education - RealNetworks will collaborate with TRUSTe to identify consumer education programs relating to Internet privacy. These programs include educational forums, Web sites, and other communications activities aimed at educating consumers about privacy issues on the Internet.
Rob Glaser, Chairman and CEO of RealNetworks, said, "Our customers care a great deal about privacy issues. We want to demonstrate that we value the trust of our customers by playing a leadership role in moving the software industry to the next level of privacy protection for consumers. What we found through this process is that it is imperative for senior management of a company to be active in communicating the importance of consumer privacy and trust through the design and development of their products and services. We are committed to working with TRUSTe to demonstrate a new standard for personal information practices in software applications."
Beginning immediately, RealNetworks will work with TRUSTe to verify the application of fair information practices in its consumer software products that transmit GUIDs and other data via the Internet. Under the direction of TRUSTe, RealNetworks will establish the first-ever software privacy statement, clearly disclosing what personally identifiable information is collected and how that information is used. TRUSTe will also establish a working group comprised of experts from within and outside of the software and Internet industry to advise the organization on how to best extend its privacy seal program.
"As the line between data collected on Web sites and the rest of network software applications has become blurred, TRUSTe recognizes the need to expand its program to the greater network," said Lewin. "Just as we did more than two years ago with our Web site privacy seal program, TRUSTe will begin working to establish a seal program with oversight on software privacy practices that utilize personal data."
About TRUSTe
TRUSTe, the leading privacy seal program, is an independent organization dedicated to building consumer trust and confidence in individual data practices. The TRUSTe network of participating companies include: America Online, Compaq, Ernst & Young, Excite, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and Novell.
Founded in 1997, TRUSTe is the premier privacy seal program worldwide. The TRUSTe seal is currently displayed on all the Internet's portal sites, 15 of the top 20 sites and approximately half of the top 100 sites. TRUSTe was recently rated the most visible symbol on the Internet by Nielsen//NetRatings.
TRUSTe is based in Cupertino, CA, with an office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit the organization's Web site at www.truste.org.
Remeber the Thomas hearings? Someone went and dug up his old video store rental records. *Very* shortly after that, it became a crime to release/publish video store records.
How long do you think it would take to get some reasonable privacy regulation if the community started posting the personal e-mail accounts, surfing habits (via some DoubleClick info, perhaps?), and online purchasing history of every member of Congress? And their family?
"200 Quatloos on the newcomer!" "300 Quatloos against!"
Is often found in the center of the road.
Fence sitting is a technique mastered by those
whose motivations aren't the issues themselves.
Of course, sitting in the middle doubles one's
sample size when looking for the deepest pockets
too. Also why our political parties in the
US seem to agree on the the same stuff during
election time.
Your idea is basically a petri dish for
corruption.
So this self regulation experiment failed. But what was regulating itself? Was the internet regulating itself? As I understand it, no. Business was (failing to) regulate itself. This isn't surprising. Witness MS vs DOJ. The involvment of the net isn't significant.
In short, this is just another case requiring government action to force business to treat citizens decently.
sklein
TRUSTe certifications are backed by accountant's signatures on opinions (there are technical teams that work for these accountants to validate the opinion). If an accountant signs a fraudulent opinion they are guilty of the same crime that a doctor commits if he or she performs the wrong operation: malpractice. That's why "Big 5 accounting firms" are involved in TRUSTe -- because their statements give TRUSTe the weight of authority.
Doctors are certified to perform medicine, lawyers are certified to give opinions and accountants are certified to attest to things. If the quality of these certifications are not legally enforced, then they are pointless. Competant lawyers and accountants are not just filling a "market need", they provide needed infrastructure for the world net junkies like you have come to rely on.
This is first-rate B.S.! TRUSTe has just defaulted on its commitment to privacy!
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
If everyone fills out their realnetworks registration like I do they won't get raped by the realnetworks spam. First Name: Bob Last Name: Johnson email: Bob@Johnson.com X : send me crappy email on from the losers at Real networks. Plus it really won't matter in 2 years, when realaudio format is totally replaced by better mpeg encoding.
With or without Tommy *shiver*
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Folks familiar with the history Jamie recounted knew that TRUSTe was going to weasel out on this one. Still, their audacity is shocking.
TRUSTe declared the privacy violation "did not involve collection of data on the RealNetworks Web site" and so washed their hands of the whole sordid deal. Well, not so fast there, buster. TRUSTe is correct that the GUID -- a unique identifying number -- was transmitted by application software. The most intrusive danger, however, is that Real would correlate the GUID against user registration information. And user registration information is gathered -- you guessed it! -- on the RealNetworks Web site.
TRUSTe cannot be trusted to safeguard our privacy. In fact, TRUSTe may be the largest barrier the industry has created in the fight for consumer privacy.
I've never heard of TRUSTe, and judging from what I read here, I haven't missed anything. Even the most blantant, outright abuses go unpunished. Not that I expect TRUSTe to have the power to punish a company, but at least remove the TRUSTe seal from their web page. As it is now, I truly wonder if there's ANYTHING a company could do to convince TRUSTe to refuse them a TRUSTe mark. So far, nothing. It's a meaningless rubber stamp, present on any web page which wants it, with no bearing at all on privacy.
Terrorism? Fuck no. Email your representatives, speak about these issues on public forums. Make yourself heard.
Dear Trust-e,
I respectfully request the address of the payola point. With said address, I can send you a large donation & gain your little privacy seal without really giving the marks any privacy at all.
If we get caught, I believe that the amount paid to you should be enough that you really would not do anything to the company at all. Agreed?
$var = <STDIN>
$var =~ s/\\$//;
this is slashchomp
> (Update: 11/08 02:55: Real got off on a technicality: "because the transmission of user data ... did not involve collection of data on the RealNetworks Web site, the privacy incident was outside of the scope of TRUSTe's current privacy seal program.")
Technically correct, but indicative of how worthless the badge is in practice.
We need to start putting a parody badge on our own web pages, TRUSTMe.
--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This would be the same Uncle Sam that created Echelon, the most secretive, wide ranging, illegal, and unconstitutional surveillance scheme in history? At least RealPlayer was free; the NSA takes our money and uses it to spy on us. Between a corrupt corporation and a corrupt government, I'll take my chances with the corporation.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
We're now at the point where internet connections are common enough and alternative payment methods like banner ads in non-browser software are starting to catch on, and that means that every software application really needs to come with a full disclosure of what conditions, if any, will cause it to establish a network connection, what data will be sent, and what will be done with the data after it is uploaded. As much as I normally loathe regulation, this is one that should be enforced by law. For 95% of the software out there, the disclosure would be pretty simple: none. For most of the remainder, the answer is still pretty simple, e.g. "FooMail sends and receives email messages at periodic intervals under control of the user". The remainder is what we need to watch out for, e.g. "InnocentJukeBox scans your hard drive for new, non-copy-protected MP3 files and sends a list of new additions to www.riaa.com every time an internet connection is established."
The disclosure could even be vague, like "Word2002 periodically uploads personal data and usage patterns to microsoft.com" but who in their right mind would consent to use an application like that?
Unfortunately, I doubt that enough people give a damn. Real Networks stock seems to be up following a new web site launch, now that the privacy issue has exceeded the attention span of the media.
Maybe, just maybe the fourth amendment (right against unreasonable search & seizure), but that only applies to the government, sorta. The Supreme Court has been gutting the fourth amendment since they put the conservatives on it, can't let criminals get away with privacy in their own car or let homosexuals get away with privacy in their own house if they were foolish enough to leave the curtains parted .5" in a state that outlaws gay sex, to cite two relatively recent decisions. Now their's talk on the Hill to pass legislation saying that the police no longer have to read you your Maranda rights! One of the kickers is a Senator's comment that, "Everyone's seen cops on TV read the Maranda rights so there's no need to require them to do it." Yeah, having some difficulty separating reality from fantasy Senator?
I, for one, am going to do that right now!!
I would like to know this as well !
Atguard may have done the job, http://www.atguard.com , but has just been bought by Symantec.
Can anyone help with this ?
Cheers
Life is just a bowl of All Bran - Small Faces
I thought ASE certified that a mechanic is competent, not honest.
And when the police come to your door and use the userid as "proof" that you authored the macrovirus I wrote (tee hee!) as sufficient cause to arrest you, I guess you'll have no problem with that, right?
I don't believe this was cause to arrest. I think they questioned him and he confessed to writing the virus.
Information like this wouldn't be classified as hard evidence for precisely the reasons you state, but it DOES help to point law enforcement in the right direction. If it ends up being forged, law enforcement loses nothing except a bit of time following a bad lead.
And when the police come to your door and use the userid as "proof" that you authored the macrovirus I wrote (tee hee!) as sufficient cause to arrest you, I guess you'll have no problem with that, right?
I don't believe this was cause to arrest. I think they questioned him and he confessed to writing the virus.
Information like this wouldn't be classified as hard evidence for precisely the reasons you state, but it DOES help to point law enforcement in the right direction. If it ends up being forged, law enforcement loses nothing except a bit of time following a bad lead.
Consumer Reports purchases products and "grades" them, unbiased. They are funded ONLY by consumer subscriptions and do not allow advertisements to be sold in their magazine. They accept no product donations and purchase the products they review themselves. This is the example any such consumer rights organization should follow.