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Ask HN: Why is everyone's privacy policy changing?

13 points by unethical_ban ↗ HN
I notice Trulia, Square, and just now CNN Money are all in recent days sending privacy policy update notices. I intend to research soon, but in the meantime, is this tied to the recent legislation holding site operators responsible for user content? Or some other law/regulation?

12 comments

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mtmail
European privacy laws require full disclosure what data you collect, whom you share it with. Opt-in for any non-essential feature, justification for data usage and how long you keep it. Companies start to require their data processors to sign agreements, thus pushing them to be compatible, even outside Europe. For example a Mailchimp or Sendmail would loose a lot of customers if they didn't update their documents (and hopefully processes). It's a huge deal in Europe. Starts May/25th.

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=GDPR

(I can't explain why CNN Money or Trulia would change it though).

wan23
This pretty much affects every large site if they use tracking or advertising tools e.g. Google Analytics that collect certain kinds of data. Those tools' terms of service are being changed to require anyone who uses them to update their privacy policies to list them explicitly and to get consent before using them.

https://www.google.com/about/company/user-consent-policy.htm...

WorldMaker
> (I can't explain why CNN Money or Trulia would change it though)

Most likely the same CYA reasons they would have also implemented the Cookie Disclosure in recent years. Even if US-based and expecting primarily US-only traffic, major company doesn't want to be legally liable for any issues arises with EU compliance, just from curious visitors. (Not to mention the obvious gray areas of EU citizens residing in the US.)

The more hopeful answer is that possibly because of GDPR and indirectly recent Facebook/Cambridge Analytica, at least some companies may be doing it simply because it is a good idea, whether or not they think GDPR applies to them.

bsvalley
The average user needs an attorney to understand those privacy policies. In other words, we're legally getting screwed by these companies.
bitxbitxbitcoin
“Take it or leave it.”
bsvalley
Sucks that we need those services in the 1st place. I don't mind sharing data while using a service I need for free. But using privacy policies is just not right for the users because they don't understand the meaning of it. Make it simple and easy to understand for everyone WHILE maintaining your legal stuff up to date so you don't get screwed making money selling our data.

I don't think the original problem is like "if you don't like our privacy policies then don't use our service" versus "you guys are screwing us selling our data" type of problems. Let's make a fair trade. Again, I don't mind sharing some of my data if you guys can generate money to support your service. Just tell me exactly what it is so I can make a fair choice.

inetsee
I use Yahoo email for some purposes (and GMail for some other purposes), and I just got an email from Yahoo about "Important update to our Terms of Service & Privacy Policy". I tried to understand the changes (which involved plowing through pages of legalese on several web pages). One thing I noticed was that there was very little specifically addressing Yahoo Mail. There were some brief mentions that would apply if I lived in South America (or other non-US regions), but almost nothing for US users.

What I did read made me think that I really need to look into replacing my webmail provider by something else, like ProtonMail. Unfortunately, changing would require getting a lot of family members (who are less tech savvy than I am) to switch my email address from one they've been sending email to for decades.

staticautomatic
I sympathize, but is it really that big a deal to switch email addresses? If you changed mailing addresses then your family would have to send snail mail to the new one.
twunde
GDPR enforcement starts soon. This is a European privacy law WITH teeth. It applies to all companies with European customers including Europeans living in the US. There are several components, but one of the big changes is disclosing everyone that your data is shared with and making sure that you have gotten consent for all the data being shared. I would guess that 99% of US companies have to update their privacy policy and terms of service in order to comply
muphet
internet was never private. idk what's all the fuss about
ecesena
Gdpr is coming into effect on May 25 and requires more details or changes in how companies deal with user’s data.
[dead] searchencrypt
Not like anyone is actually going to notice or read the updates...