You may have seen the TRUSTe Privacy Seal on many of your favorite Web sites such as Apple, eBay, Facebook, Monster.com and The New York Times. This ubiquitous seal marks 2,400+ Web sites that are dedicated to protecting your privacy. On June 11, TRUSTe will commemorate its 10th anniversary by introducing a modernized version of its former logo, retaining the TRUSTe name and its familiar green and black colors.
TRUSTe’s Web Privacy Seal means that a Web site keeps its promises to protect your privacy, and allows you to have a choice about the use and sharing of your personal information.
Subjecting Web sites to tough standards and rigorous testing since 1997, TRUSTe has been:
1) Making sure that Web sites treat your identity and email address with respect and transparency. Any Web site with the TRUSTe seal will give you the right to access your information, delete your information, and give you a choice to keep it private. Not every Web site can meet TRUSTe’s tough standards. The privacy statement and TRUSTe approval can be validated by clicking on the seal or visiting the TRUSTe Web site.
2) Monitoring any changes to a sealholder’s Web site or promises. The TRUSTe seal on a Web site means that the site can be trusted to keep the promises it makes in its privacy statement. TRUSTe regularly monitors Web sites’ adherence to their privacy statements and has the power to enforce compliance with its program. In 2006, TRUSTe conducted 24 investigations of sealholders and revoked the seal in a number of those cases.
3) Resolving your individual privacy-related complaints. If you believe your privacy has been violated on a Web site displaying the TRUSTe seal, contact TRUSTe directly by registering a complaint on TRUSTe’s Watchdog complaint form at http://www.truste.org/watchdog. This is a unique service to help you guard and protect your individual personal information.
Look for the TRUSTe seal and ask your favorite Web sites to make sure they are protecting your privacy by joining TRUSTe.
For more information on TRUSTe and its new look, visit www.truste.org.
June 11th, 2007
TRUSTe has successfully certified twelve software applications in the Trusted Download Program Beta to date, and a dozen more are in the process of certification. Over the past few months the focus of the Beta program has moved from certifying software to monitoring the distribution networks of certified software.
As applications enter and leave the whitelist for either voluntarily or through investigation and compliance actions, TRUSTe will notate the additions and departures through the TRUSTe blog to provide additional detail to interested parties. This is the first notice on withdrawal of a software application from the whitelist.
Vomba 1.2.0.1 is no longer listed in the whitelist and its distribution and technical operation are no longer monitored by TRUSTe.
TRUSTe certified the software application Vomba 1.2.0.1 and placed the application on the whitelist in provisional status in February. In order for any covered advertising or covered tracking application to maintain certification status they must also certify their distribution partners and subject those partners to TRUSTe monitoring on an ongoing basis.
Vomba began rolling out its distribution network after certification, and always communicated in good faith with TRUSTe during the planning and initial deployment phases of the network. Unfortunately, as Vomba considered scaling their distribution network, they decided that the cost associated with maintaining that network within the Trusted Download Program Beta were not consistent with their financial objectives.Vomba was additionally exploring new and creative distribution methods, particularly in the peer-to-peer market. Vomba would have been required to discontinue this approach.
TRUSTe was actively engaged in an exploration into the level of separation between Vomba and another entity under the corporate umbrella. We ultimately did not reach a conclusion on this matter, but were in the process of requiring additional process and further certifications of Vomba’s corporate neighbors, given the lack of clarity on boundaries.
To be clear, TRUSTe did not embark on an enforcement process with Vomba. Vomba has made a business decision that they no longer want to make the financial commitment to maintain certification, with the cost of their growing distribution network playing a primary role.
Posted by: Colin O’Malley
June 11th, 2007
