Open AccessAn Imbalance Of Power: The Readability Of Internet Privacy Policies
Author(s) -
Rochelle A. Cadogan
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of business and economics research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2157-8893
pISSN - 1542-4448
DOI - 10.19030/jber.v2i3.2864
Subject(s) - readability , privacy policy , the internet , business , internet privacy , information privacy , public relations , online business , advertising , marketing , computer science , world wide web , political science , programming language
The gap is growing. While collection techniques by today’s business marketing professionals are becoming increasingly sophisticated, there is also an alarming lack of knowledge by Internet sur-fers about how companies track their online movements and use the information. The privacy policy is the document that provides the information regarding how the organization handles the dataflow in their organizations. The policy should answer the consumer’s question, “What is being done with the information that I provide when I am on the Internet?” But how understandable are these policies? This research project is a multiple case study in which the privacy policies of three organizations are evaluated in terms of their readability and their user-friendliness. The three online organizations selected include PrivacyAlliance.org, Dell.com, and Amazon.com.