Consumer Knowledge of Disclosure Agreements

1. Consumer Knowledge of Disclosure Agreements Jesus A. Noland, Dr. Stephen WickerCalifornia State University, Fullerton Cornell University Introduction Solutions • Consumers do not know what their personal data is being used for. • David Vladeck, the US director for consumer protection in the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said this statement in a recent article, “the fact that no one reads privacy policies when shopping online,” • Research has already proven that consumers rather skip through an agreement such as a privacy policy, end-user license agreement, and/or disclosure agreement. • OBJECTIVE • Determine new approaches that will help consumers know the policies of the companies they are seeking service from and to make the agreements less cumbersome. • APPROACHES • Approaches that will accomplish the objective: • Bolding and/or highlighting key phrases • Breaking the agreement into sections that will allow for the user to agree to multiple sections • Condensing the agreement to a set standard of pages • The agreement could consist of bullet points instead of literary paragraphs • Enacting new government-regulated industry that would provided consumers with non-biased third party summaries and verifications of company’s privacy policies, end-user license agreements , and/or disclosure agreements. • Conduct quizzes that must have a minimum passing percentage • FUTURE APPLICATION • Most of my references and arguments have come from online-based services but the main purpose for this research is too provide standard guidelines as the foundation for new data-gathering innovations such as utility data. • Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) gives utilities enough data to know what activities have, had, and will happen in the home. • This personal data is not well protected under the current federal laws in any country, and so consumers that are informed of their companies data policies will push consumer data protection within the industries that these companies occupy. Methods • Users will install software onto computers • There will be two groups; the first selection will be the control group that would install the software using the standard approach for signing a disclosure agreement. The next selection would have the same software to install and sign the same agreement but using a different approach. • After the software has been installed the users will be questioned on how well they know the tenants of the disclosure agreement. References "Facebook-logo." The Next Web | TNW Is the International Source for Internet News, Business and Culture. Web. 29 July 2010. <http://thenextweb.com/apps/2010/03/16/facebook-delivering-search-results-type-blazing-fast/facebook-logo-3/>. 2009, Late. Apple Logo. Web. 28 July 2010. <http://www.applelogo.info/>. "Customer Privacy Policy." Apple. 21 June 2010. Web. 28 July 2010. <http://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/>. "Privacy Policy | Facebook." Welcome to Facebook. 22 Apr. 2010. Web. 28 July 2010. <http://www.facebook.com/policy.php>. McDonald, Aleecia M., and Lorrie F. Cranor. "The Cost of Reading Privacy Policies." I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society 2008 Privacy Year in Review (2008). Is-Journal. Web. 26 July 2010. <http://www.is-journal.org/>. Pop, Valentina. "Online Privacy Labels to Prevent Shoppers 'selling Their Souls'" EUobserver. 14 July 2010. Web. 26 July 2010. <http://euobserver.com/?aid=30478>. Wilson, Tim. "Users, Enterprises Pay for Poor Privacy Policies, Study Says." DarkReading. 7 Oct. 2008. Web. 26 July 2010. <http://www.darkreading.com/security/cybercrime/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=211201259>.