Data privacy is a hot topic at the moment with the announcement of proposals for legislative reform of data protection in the EU and increased emphasis on giving users more information and control over tracking tools such as cookies. Capitalising on this, a new website and browser plug-in, Privacy Score, offers visitors the chance to see how major websites respect their privacy.
Currently, Privacy Score has graded 1,461 websites with a score out of 100 based on the likelihood that each site will pass on a user's data and how many companies use the site to track visitors. The average score for sites is 71, with Google and Twitter scoring 85 and 95 respectively.
Grading websites proved to be a complex process for Privacy Score's founders, particularly in the case of Facebook where they discovered that each game and application page required a separate privacy score as each one has its own privacy policy and allows companies to serve adverts and collect data. Pointing out the rationale behind the website, Privacy Score claims, "It's obvious that long-form privacy policies have largely failed in informing web users about privacy risk. With numbers, it's much easier to compare privacy risks between different sites."
As we reported here, initiatives are being developed to provide web users with more information on targeted advertising. As website owners increasingly subsidise their income by selling space on their websites to advertising and marketing firms and data companies, Privacy Score intends to put pressure on websites to forewarn users about tracking devices and to be more explicit about how they handle users' data.