First, thanks everyone for replying.
I still disagree with you, though, for two reasons:
The first reason: Valar Inc. gave my email to a third party, when it stated that it would not. There's a difference between "We'll only share your email with companies that we consider to be safe." and "We won't share it." The rest of this message is long, but all secondary to this point. This is why I'm upset.
The second reason will take a little longer, but kenjib summarized it exactly. When you say that I shouldn't worry, this is what I think:
I've received no spam. Likely, it won't happen. However, that doesn't mean that it can't happen. Also, I'm not a lawyer, but I have been exposed to this subject quite a bit, hence the long thought.
Yes, a bank or credit card company can share my information and do the wrong thing, like your friend says, and likely nobody will care enough that anything will happen. But using the behavior of large, publicly-traded companies as an example of what's right/wrong is not a good idea.
Still, the privacy policy of large companies is closely watched by groups who are interested in privacy. And in my experience, every single time that one of the financial institutions that I deal with changes its privacy policy, it notifies me in writing, and gives me an opt-out. This requirement of notification is why your friend says that the company would be sued if they changed it without telling me. This is all neither here nor there, since most of America has given up on junk physical mail, which is what these companies' actions end up in. Let's talk email.
Yahoo, Hotmail, and others all have public privacy policies posted. Most of them notify you of any change. Notification is key, it is what distinguishes good privacy policies from bad ones. Roving Software has a bad one. Regardless of what the rest of Roving's privacy page says, the "Notification of Change" clause I quoted essentially puts the following condition on the rest of the page: "...until we want to change it, in whole or in part, which we can do without notification." This language is not an accident; it was chosen with a lawyer. It gives the company maximum freedom to make changes, unlike what your friend said. In fact, it essentially frees the company of all statements it made on the page, since it can freely change what the page says at any time. Taken to the ultimate, this enables Roving to do the following sequence: change its privacy policy to an ugly one, sell all the emails, and then change it back to the pretty one. And the company doesn't have to tell anyone what happened.
This is how it works.
Is this pedantic? Yes. But still, like I said, this is secondary to my first concern. I'm not heartened that Valar's first response to my concern that they did the opposite of what they said they would do is that I shouldn't worry.
I hope that I'm wrong about all this. If so, please correct me.
Thanks again for writing.
-Clint
Hi, Lupa, I appreciate your reply. I apologize for mistaking that the service was free for you. I saw Roving's webpage and assumed that you were using their free trial, which lasts for two months.-Lupa said:
I still disagree with you, though, for two reasons:
The first reason: Valar Inc. gave my email to a third party, when it stated that it would not. There's a difference between "We'll only share your email with companies that we consider to be safe." and "We won't share it." The rest of this message is long, but all secondary to this point. This is why I'm upset.
The second reason will take a little longer, but kenjib summarized it exactly. When you say that I shouldn't worry, this is what I think:
I've received no spam. Likely, it won't happen. However, that doesn't mean that it can't happen. Also, I'm not a lawyer, but I have been exposed to this subject quite a bit, hence the long thought.
Yes, a bank or credit card company can share my information and do the wrong thing, like your friend says, and likely nobody will care enough that anything will happen. But using the behavior of large, publicly-traded companies as an example of what's right/wrong is not a good idea.
Still, the privacy policy of large companies is closely watched by groups who are interested in privacy. And in my experience, every single time that one of the financial institutions that I deal with changes its privacy policy, it notifies me in writing, and gives me an opt-out. This requirement of notification is why your friend says that the company would be sued if they changed it without telling me. This is all neither here nor there, since most of America has given up on junk physical mail, which is what these companies' actions end up in. Let's talk email.
Yahoo, Hotmail, and others all have public privacy policies posted. Most of them notify you of any change. Notification is key, it is what distinguishes good privacy policies from bad ones. Roving Software has a bad one. Regardless of what the rest of Roving's privacy page says, the "Notification of Change" clause I quoted essentially puts the following condition on the rest of the page: "...until we want to change it, in whole or in part, which we can do without notification." This language is not an accident; it was chosen with a lawyer. It gives the company maximum freedom to make changes, unlike what your friend said. In fact, it essentially frees the company of all statements it made on the page, since it can freely change what the page says at any time. Taken to the ultimate, this enables Roving to do the following sequence: change its privacy policy to an ugly one, sell all the emails, and then change it back to the pretty one. And the company doesn't have to tell anyone what happened.
This is how it works.
Is this pedantic? Yes. But still, like I said, this is secondary to my first concern. I'm not heartened that Valar's first response to my concern that they did the opposite of what they said they would do is that I shouldn't worry.
I hope that I'm wrong about all this. If so, please correct me.
Thanks again for writing.
-Clint
