Who Polices the Privacy Policy?

September 26, 2006

I recently received an email from Cafe Press announcing that changes had been made to their Privacy Policy.

Side Note!

I don’t actually sell anything through Cafe Press, but once upon a time I opened an account so I could look around. Once I decided I didn’t really want the service, I couldn’t figure out how to close my account. So now most of their correspondence ends up in my junk mail, and I only see it when I’m sifting through my spam looking for someone to meet in my area on a Friday night. That’s absolutely not true. But their email does end up in the junk folder, instead of legitimately being unsubscribed. That’s a story for another day.

Back to the Point!

So anyway, Cafe Press made changes to their Privacy Policy, and sent out an email regarding it. They advised that I look over the revised policy, and I thought that would be a good idea, especially if I had any of my art work sitting on their servers ready to be made into t-shirts. Which I didn’t, but that’s not the point I was referring to earlier.

So I’m lazy. And Privacy Policies, if you’ve never read one, are generally long on filler, and short on plot. All I really wanted is a list of changes. So I was pleased when I saw the last line in the correspondence:

For more information about the changes please visit our Announcement Page.

So I follow the link, anxious to see what changes have been made to the Privacy Policy. As it turns out:

…the changes to the Privacy Policy are more form than substance.

Oh, well that’s a relief. Anything else?

Overall we attempted to revise the Privacy Policy so that it reads easier.

Which likely just means what it says. Or it could mean “You retain all copyright on your artwork” reads easier as “You retain all copyright on your artwork until you put it on one of our shirts, and then it belongs to us, sucker”. Note that I have no idea what is in the Cafe Press Privacy Policy, I’m just making a point, which was brought to mind when I received an email announcing changes to a Privacy Policy, and the preceding is just a made up example to illustrate it.

The Point Already

The point is, in this day of collaborative community built enterprises, it is very important as content creators to know just what rights to our content we are signing away when we join one of these groups. Read your Privacy Policies! Your work is valuable, don’t get robbed.

And if you are writing a privacy policy, actually list the changes you make when the policy is revised. Don’t write “Oh, we’ve changed a bunch of stuff, you know, no biggie.”

It’s my creative content, it is a biggie.

Posted lovingly by Ryan 0 Comments 0 Trackbacks Permalink