Comments on: Turning online privacy into a joke

When it comes to cyberprivacy, Donal Daly, CEO of The Customer Respect Group, says many businesses are dangerously out of tune with the concerns of their customers.

The latin phrasing

The latin" Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..." is the default text from a PowerPoint template. The fact that it made it all the way to production website only further reinforces the point of the article, however.

The latin phrasing

The latin" Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..." is the default text from a PowerPoint template. The fact that it made it all the way to production website only further reinforces the point of the article, however.

[kscherry2000]

Privacy matters

I hope more companies take HP's example and do a lot better with their privacy policies. Maybe some think that people are so into the Internet, that most either don't care or don't know about privacy policies, so they can post whatever they want. I believe more people will care about and learn about privacy policies in the near future and that will force companies into respecting their customers.

[Pony99CA]

I Wouldn't Laud HP

I wouldn't laud HP. While it's privacy policy may be reasonable, every page I've seen also has a link at the bottom saying "Using this site means you accept its terms" which leads to the following URL <http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/termsofuse.html>.

I wonder if somebody actually believes any of those terms (other than ones covered by existing laws) would be enforceable.

First, they're hidden at the bottom of the page, and not conspicuous. A user might easily visit the page and never even see that link.

Second, even if the user saw that link, the user has to take an explicit action to read the terms. How many people would do that?

If HP really wanted to enforce terms and conditions, you'd think they'd pop up a window containing them whenever somebody visited their site (like a shrink-wrap license or End User License Agreements in software).

Of course, if they did that, how many people would even bother using their site?

Steve

[bjbrock]

Good point...Except HP .

Online HP may not be the worst, but the software they install on new PC's is loaded with spyware. From Backweb, which is a favorite of IT vendors and very good at monitoring your online time, to their MM Keyboard driver which is very good also. All big PC makers are packing their PC's with spyware to subsidize the near nil marging on their hardware and skyrocketing support costs.

This industry has become one built on lies, deciet, and fraud. And the consumer is abused at every chance.

Registration processes have gone over the line as well. Vendors think that if you buy one product, the have a right to dig their hooks in you and keep tabs for ever more. Intuit convinced me to never buy another of their products after having to provide info that was none of their business. They take you to a point where either give them your life's history or cancel the registration.

[irdac]

Standard Conditions

I am of the opinion that it is long past time for a standard set of fair conditions to be made the legally required core of all company's terms and conditions. The company would be allowed to add further conditions to extend but not modify these. All such additions would have to be prominently displayed in plain language. Then we would know which companies were reliable.