Drumbeat/website/projects/privacyicons

Title

Privacy Icons

Project Headline

Making your online privacy right understandable

Background

Presently few users read - and fewer still understand - the privacy rights they retain or sign away when joining an online service like Facebook or Myspace. What is needed is a simpler way to convey what users rights are - ideally through a simple set of icons. Those interested in the idea are encouraged to read Aza Razkin's blog post Making Privacy Policies not Suck which got this idea rolling within the Drumbeat community.

Short Description

Design a simple set of icons that can educate users of the privacy policies of websites. (Think of something as simple as the Fair Trade Coffee label on food or creative commons logos for copyright). The goal is to:

• Create a simple standard to explain privacy policies (make privacy policies not suck) and terms of service
• Enable web users to make better choices when picking and using web services
• Enable web users to have more control over their privacy
• Increase internet users awareness about privacy issues
• Educate internet users on privacy policies of websites
• Establish, and move the online service industry to adopt, a standard around privacy and terms of service (or push online services to adopt better practices)

How does this make the web better?

A better web is one where contracts - and thus power relationships - between users and services are transparent and open. Presently many people are joining social networks and online communities with little to no awareness of the contracts and terms they are entering into. Essentially some users are signing away the privacy without being aware - other users refuse to join any website out of concern over their privacy. Both outcomes are bad as the first threatens to make the internet a place where users cannot control their online persona and privacy, the second creates a user base that forsakes the internet as a tool for engagement.

Some Tags

privacy, social-networking, design, safety

Participation Ask

There are several ways to contribute:

• For each orthogonal statement (a privacy state that is "on" or "off" ask drumbeat community members to submit visual themes or ideas that might convey the essence of that statement
• Design challenge - run a competition to design the "look and feel" of the icons
• Test the "logic" of the icons: where do the icons work and where to they break (e.g. works in a business setting, not in personal setting or a given icon does not work on website "x")
• Review the privacy policies of major websites and asses which combination of icons describes their policy
• Begin to design/outline the educational material and strategy to accompany the icons so users can learn what they mean.

Tools

A Clear Measurable Outcome

A set of icons that can be used to describe the privacy policies of major websites.

Audience

End-users

Icon

• A "spy-vs-spy" like character who is clearly pixelated in a old PC style icon.

Related Links

Ryan Calo of Standford University also, suggested this highly helpful links:
[privacycommons.org http://wiki.privacycommons.org/]
[knowprivacy.org http://www.knowprivacy.org/policies_methodology.html]
[Madebyparker.com http://madebyparker.com/blog/2009/08/privacy-a-cc-like-approach-and-why-its-important-to-free-network-services/]
[Maximiliansenges http://maximiliansenges.blogspot.com/2009/03/modular-human-readable-privacy-policies.html]
[Privacybird.org http://www.privacybird.org/]
[w3.org http://www.w3.org/P3P/]
[Lorrie.cranor.org http://lorrie.cranor.org/#publications]