Al Franken Grandstands Over Meaningless Privacy Policies

We were just discussing the whole misguided focus on privacy policies. For years, now, there's been this false and silly belief that, if we just required that websites have "privacy policies," it would somehow lead to more privacy. But it's a completely false sense of security. No one reads privacy policies. They're meaningless. And you can put anything in one -- including claiming to freely give up anyone's data to anyone who asks. And yet... the obsession continues. My original post on the subject was due to a silly study about how many mobile apps don't have privacy policies. In true grandstanding fashion, it appears Senator Al Franken has picked up on that report, and is saying that Apple and Google should require privacy policies.

I'm sure he means well, and I'm sure he thinks this is about protecting people's privacy. But it's not. What good does a privacy policy do in this situation? It presents a bunch of policies that no one will read, no one will pay attention to, which the company can change at any time, and which can be written so broadly as to be the opposite of actually protecting anyone's privacy. And yet, if Google and Apple require such things, Franken and others will think they're protecting people's privacy, when they're not. Stop worrying about privacy policies, and start focusing on stuff that actually matters.

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