January 29 was International Privacy Day, the annual event held in recognition of when the first international convention on privacy was announced. As far as we’re concerned, every day should be International Privacy Day (you can learn more by checking out the information provided by the Electronic Privacy Information Center and choose to become an individual signatory via this form), but not everyone is as worried about online privacy as they should since they think it doesn’t affect them – and they couldn’t be more wrong. Every time someone uses a search engine or logs on to a social networking site, for example, they are governed by that site’s privacy policy… and if there is no privacy policy, all bets are off.
In the online world, Google rules. It’s not surprising, therefore, that when Google announced it will replace its old privacy policy and roll out a new one on March 1, 2012, it was met with loud criticism.
Atigeo LLC‘s President and COO Christopher Burgess writes in the Huffington Post, “I’d like to see industry move to an environment where the preferences and identity of the consumer are 100 percent controlled by the individual consumer.” Wouldn’t we all.
But despite the concerns about Google’s new privacy policy, it doesn’t win the prize as the world’s worst one, not by a long shot. According to Forbes, that honor goes to search engine Skipidy, which allegedly posts its privacy policy solely “to satisfy the absurd privacy requirements of various legal entities.” Highlights of the policy – which seems to be a combination of brazenness, humor and insanity, include:
- While most other companies are concerned with protecting your privacy, we care about profiteering and violating it when expedient or useful.
- You have no privacy with us. If we can use any of your details to legally make a profit, we probably will.
- By using any of our services, you grant us permission to surgically implant a tracking microchip of our choosing in your body and sell all collected information to the highest bidder . . . and to all other bidders.
- We are serious about all of the above. So don’t go trying to sue us later with some nonsense like “I thought that was all satire.” All your privacy are belong to us. We mean it.