Friday, September 12, 2008

Ask.com places privacy policy link in home page - NetworkWorld.com

Ask.com have decided to set a nexus to its privateness policy on its place page, something that search-engine challenger Google have declined
to make and that have earned it unfavorable judgment from privateness advocates.

As of Wednesday, Ask.com have a "privacy" nexus on its , as well as on the landing pages of most of its secondary land sites -- like its forte perpendicular engines for things like news
and mental images -- thus covering almost all of its hunt traffic, the company said in a statement. Ask.com have also added a "conspicuous
link" to its privateness policy on its "About" page. Don't Miss!

Ask.com is also in the procedure of creating two hunt consequences pages that volition be served up whenever people come in the queries
"Ask privacy" or simply "Privacy" in the hunt engine. These pages will incorporate information and golf course related to online privacy
in general and to Ask.com policies in particular. Related Content

In improver to distributing its statement as a fourth estate release and as an functionary blog posting, Ask.com is sending it to privacy
organisations and advocators and to the Golden State lawyer general's office.

"No 1 required that we take any of these steps. We took a expression at our webpages, and realized we could do some cardinal improvements
when it came to privateness golf course on our service. It's simply the right thing to make for the information and consciousness of our users,"
the statement reads.

Putting a privateness policy nexus on their site's place page have been an industry criterion pattern for a long clip for most Web
publishers, said Brock Meeks, a spokesman for the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT).

Thus, Ask.com's determination is a good one, but not an earth-shaking move that is out of the ordinary, Meeks said. "Ask.com is
falling in line with industry standards," he said.

Making a site's privateness policy easy to entree by putting a nexus to it on the place page assists users do more than informed decisions
regarding whether they desire to frequent a land land site or not. "It's separate of letting the user take control of their online experience,"
Meeks said.

Earlier this month, a grouping of privateness organisations sent a missive to Google chief executive officer Eric Schmidt, asking that Google include
a nexus to its privateness policy on its place page.

In the letter, the organisations argued that posting the nexus on the place page is not only a good pattern but also mandated
by Golden State law, which necessitates the operator of a commercial Web land land site to "conspicuously post its privateness policy on its Web
site." 1

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

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