Last month, we released the initial results of our Internet privacy sweep. You can read the original blog post to see what we observed. (We should note here that the screenshots and references in that blog post reflect what we saw online during the sweep and were still in place when we originally blogged about the sweep results on August 13.)
As part of our efforts on the sweep, our Office advised the companies that were mentioned in the blog, inviting them to contact the OPC if they wished to discuss the Sweep and our observations.
Since that original post, we are very pleased to see that some of the organizations we highlighted have made changes to enhance their online privacy policies.
A&W changed its privacy policy shortly after we issued the results of our Privacy Sweep. Their original 110-word privacy policy has now been expanded to just under 1600 words and covers the collection, use, disclosure and retention of customers’ personal information collected through customer feedback, events, gift card purchases and contests.
Bell Media also updated their privacy policy shortly thereafter, fixing the broken link to their Privacy Officer’s email address:
We think customers will be pleased as well to see that the companies they choose to do business with are more open and straightforward about how they use customer information.
Hopefully other companies we looked at, as well as those that didn’t, will take note.