Ever tried to read the fine print relating to your online privacy? We have and we’ve discovered many are pretty bamboozling. Some privacy policies are so badly written that half of Brits can’t understand them.
Which? Computing devised a simple electronic test taking 10 clauses from the privacy policies of online heavyweights – including Twitter, Hotmail, Paypal and Google – and then challenged 100 people to pick the correct explanation from our multiple choice answers. It couldn’t be that hard, could it?
Privacy terms misunderstood by most
Actually, it could. Our test revealed that while the majority (65%) told us that the privacy policy terms were easy to understand, only half got the correct answer.
The gap was even wider in the case of Facebook. Although 70% of people told us they found Facebook’s privacy policy quite or very clear to understand, a mere 31% of them picked the right multiple choice answer.
And only 26% correctly interpreted a clause from file storage site Dropbox, despite 59% of our examinees claiming they found it to be quite or very clear.
Online T&Cs often go unread
While many privacy terms are misunderstood, the majority don’t bother to read them at all. Only 13% of people actually bother to read websites’ T&Cs according to our survey. And just 8% said they carefully read the full T&Cs of an online service before clicking accept.
The length of these policies is one reason they go unread. As my colleague Richard Parris has previously pointed out many policies are longer than the longest of Shakespeare’s plays.
The combined T&Cs and privacy policy for Apple’s iTunes run to 19,972 words, making them longer than Macbeth. And when you add up PayPal’s privacy policy, acceptable-use policy, its eBay shipping services policy and UK billing agreement terms, you’re left with a staggering 34,798 words to wade through. Hamlet, Shakespeare’s longest play, clocks in at 30,066 words.
Does it matter if you don’t read T&Cs
Little wonder people don’t read these terms; I wouldn’t. But the fact remains that we should know what we’re consenting to. You could, for example, be consenting to your details being sold on to a third party that you’ve never even heard of.
We have worked hard to make our own privacy policies accessible and easy to read and other websites should do the same. How can people be expected to understand them if they’re so long, full of legal jargon and badly worded?
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