For those of you following the ever-entertaining saga about Facebook data mining the entire human population (except for the smart ones), here's another zinger about their relationship with TRUSTe, the supposed Internet privacy and trust organization founded in 1997. First, some extracts from their mission statement and website:
" TRUSTe® is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to enabling individuals and organizations to establish trusting relationships based on respect for personal identity and information in the evolving networked world.
Advancing privacy and trust for a networked world, we certify and monitor web site privacy and email policies, monitor practices, and resolve thousands of consumer privacy problems every year."
You've probably seen their logo on various sites you may visit, such as eBay. This 'privacy seal' is supposed to ensure that the website in question has trustworthy online privacy policies. Even though I've done a fair amount of work on the periphery of web privacy standards in Canada in the past few years, I'd never really crossed paths with TRUSTe other than noticing their seal on a few sites, and automatically assuming that the site in question cared more about privacy or protecting user data than another site which doesn't have the seal. For someone like me and the other eight people or so who actually care about user privacy on the web, it was like a warm fuzzy blanket that made me feel more comfortable visiting the site in question, and I never paid more heed to it than that.
