Online marketers may have finally gotten the message and are starting to post privacy policies on their Web sites.
A draft study by a Georgetown University business professor, to be released publicly today, found that 65.7% of Web sites constituting 98.8% of consumer Web traffic posted at least one type of privacy disclosure–either a privacy policy notice or an information practice statement. (An example of the latter would be a statement that credit card numbers are transmitted to a secure server.)
The draft of the Georgetown Internet Privacy Policy Survey, by Professor Mary J. Culnan, also found that 12% of the sites in her sample that collect personal information address all basic fair information practices–notice, choice, access and security.
In addition, Culnan found that 94% of the top 100 sites posted information practice statements, up from 71% last year.
The study was requested by the Federal Trade Commission and conducted with corporate funding by America Online Inc., IBM, Microsoft, Time Warner, and the Direct Marketing Association among others.
The results were released yesterday to the FTC and the study’s advisors. An electronic version will be available today at http://www.privacyalliance.org.
The numbers represent quite a change from the past. In a Web site survey last year, the FTC reported to that only 14% posted any kind of information practice statement.
“Online firms deserve considerable credit for making progress over the last year,” FTC chairman Robert Pitofsky said in a statement. “There is a remarkable increase in the number of Web sites posting information about their privacy practices.”
“This demonstrates that the most successful businesses have recognized that privacy and profit go hand in hand on the Internet,” H. Robert Wientzen, president and CEO of the DMA, said in a statement.
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