By Nick Patience
With Truste, the web-based online privacy initiative up and running and with just over 300 members, we wondered what had happened to its rival, the Better Business Bureau Online, which is attempting to do much the same thing. That is, to ensure that web site owners establish policies for maintaining the privacy of visitors to their site and then sticking to those policies. BBBOnline’s VP and general manager Russ Bodoff tells us that tests will start next week with about 30 web sites that will display the BBBOnline seal. They will have used the organization’s compliance assessment model, to construct their privacy policy. This is an eight-page document that lays out the principles upon which a privacy policy should be based.
The reason for the sudden interest in privacy is the recent enactment of the European Union’s data protection directive and the need for US companies to at least get near to complying with it. Under the directive, which is yet to become law in most EU countries, US companies would not be able to transfer data gathered in Europe to the US because the US does not have an adequate level of legal protection for the personal data, in the eyes of the EU. Bodies such as Truste and BBBOnline are the industry’s answer to the US government’s calls for a self- regulatory framework that will minimize the amount of legislation needed in the US.
Truste, a non-profit group that grew out of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) two years ago, offers a similar solution to the problem as BBBOnline, except that it does not prescribe any boundaries for a privacy policy, other than three very high-level tenets. Rather, it simply works to ensure that companies adhere to their policies, whatever they might be. The BBBOnline assessment requires companies to assign somebody the responsibility for maintaining the privacy policy, and ensure that the flow of data is properly tracked and so on. BBBOnline believes the assessment will prevent the need for third-party auditing (one of Truste’s chosen methods of verification) because they are so expensive, says Bodoff.
But such seals of approval only work if consumers know about it and something can be done about those that violate privacy. Bodoff admits that the campaign has not reached the required level of exposure yet and says that the organization is planning television and print advertising campaigns, as well as on the web. This is in addition to work done by the Online Privacy Alliance (OPA) of about 60 companies, promoting both Truste and BBBOnline, as well as others. Web users can complain to BBBOnline about companies violating their privacy whether or not they are members of its program. Bodoff says BBBOnline has a dispute resolution program that users can pursue and says it will also lobby the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to get involved in cases.
Bodoff says the BBB is well-placed to administer such a self- regulatory effort, having an offline track record stretching back 85 years. Regarding the fact that there are only about 30 companies testing the system (out of millions of web sites), Bodoff points out that when BBB launched its advertising self- regulation initiative in 1971, there was tremendous doubt that it could work, but it is still in place today and, he says, is successful. BBBOnline has raised about $2.2m from 26 leading companies on the web to fund its early stages. It also charges companies to display its seal, ranging from about $200 a year for small companies, through to about $2,000 for the largest, based on revenues and those companies that have provided funding will also have to pay to display the seal. More details about the program will be revealed in two weeks.
