Privacy Policies and Their Lack of Clear Disclosure Regarding the Life Cycle of User Information
Privacy Policies and Their Lack of Clear Disclosure Regarding the Life Cycle of User Information
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隐私政策及其对用户信息生命周期缺乏明确披露
DOI：
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发表时间：
2016
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Priya C. Kumar
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Priya C. Kumar
公司，特别是信息和通信技术领域的公司，收集、汇总和存储着全球数十亿人的海量信息。隐私政策是公司向公众阐明如何管理此用户信息的主要手段。广泛的研究记录了这些政策的问题，包括它们难以理解。本文分析了全球16家最大的互联网和电信公司的23项政策，并展示了模糊或不清晰的语言阻碍理解公司实践的具体方式。它认为，这些政策缺乏明确性，这是一个重大障碍，阻碍了人们对使用哪些产品或服务做出明智的选择。隐私政策中不连贯的语言也会阻碍机器学习或其他技术的广泛采用来分析此类政策。公司更清楚地披露他们如何使用、共享和保留他们收集的所有类型的信息，将有助于了解用户信息的生命周期。
Companies, particularly those in the information and communications technology sector, collect, aggregate, and store immense amounts of information about billions of people around the world. Privacy policies represent the primary means through which companies articulate to the public how they manage this user information. Extensive research has documented the problems with such policies, including that they are difficult to understand. This paper presents an analysis of 23 policies from 16 of the world’s largest internet and telecommunications companies and shows the specific ways that vague or unclear language hinders comprehension of company practice. It argues that the lack of clarity in such policies presents a significant barrier toward empowering people to make informed choices about which products or services to use. The incoherent language in privacy policies can also hinder the widespread adoption of machine learning or other techniques to analyze such policies. Clearer disclosure from companies about how they use, share, and retain all types of information they collect will shed light on what the life cycle of user information looks like.