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Mozilla weighs privacy warnings for Web pages

Declan McCullagh CNET News | February 2, 2010 10:05 AM PST

Summary

Unless you speak lawyerese as a second language, a Web site's privacy policy can seem as incomprehensible as the loudspeakers on New York City subways. But Mozilla may do something about it.

Topics

Web, Mozilla Corp., Web Page, Channel Management, Web Site Development, Marketing, Internet, Mozilla, Firefox, privacy, Declan McCullagh CNET News
Unless you speak lawyerese as a second language, a Web site's privacy policy can seem as incomprehensible as the loudspeakers on New York City subways.

The organization behind Firefox, the world's second most popular Web browser, has embarked on an ambitious project to change this. Instead of forcing people concerned about privacy to scroll through pages of "notwithstanding anything to the contrary," the Mozilla Foundation is designing a standard set of colored icons to reveal how data-protective--or how intrusive--Web sites are.

The Mozilla Foundation's eventual goal is to create icons as easy to understand as care labels on a shirt that say whether it should be dry cleaned or washed in cold water. Using the letter P inside a circle has been discussed, even if it bears an unfortunate resemblance to the ubiquitous blue signs for parking lots, as has borrowing icon ideas from Creative Commons. (The project is unrelated to the ad industry's recent announcement of a blue "i" icon for behavioral advertising.)

For more of this story, read Mozilla weighs privacy warnings for Web pages on CNET News.

Talkback Most Recent of 1 Talkback(s)

  • Firefox
    Bravo again Firefox! Again you take the front of the list to get things done the right way. If anyone out there is not using Firefox please wake up and see the light. IE is sooo lame. It works against the people not for the people. Wake up Bill you got enough money already! Follow a winners application
    ZDNet Gravatar
    MrMagQQ
    3rd Feb 2010

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