14 DAY TRIAL // Online privacy is always a 'popular' topic and, while people's expectations may change over time as Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg claims, people do care about their privacy even on the web. However, while some sites play fair and generally don't misuse your data, there is no simple way of knowing how any particular site handles the info you provide. This is where Mozilla's Privacy Icons come in.
The Privacy Icons are a product of Mozilla Drumbeat, the organization's home for projects related to the open web. Soon-to-be former Mozilla creative lead Aza Raskin showcased the alpha release of the Privacy Icons.
"We are now ready to propose an alpha version of Privacy Icons that takes into account the feedback and participation we’ve received along the way," Raskin wrote.
"We’ve simplified the core set dramatically and tightened up the language. While the icons don’t touch on all topics, we do think they significantly move the discussion on privacy, as well as the general level of literacy about privacy, forward," he added.
For now there are five pairs of icons each symbolizing certain actions. For example, there are icons for the way the data is used, whether it is strictly for the purpose of the site or not.
There are also icons to indicate whether your data is being sold to third parties or given to advertisers for targeting purposes. Another proposed set of icons shows how long the website stores your data.
Finally, there are a couple of icons which indicate whether your data will be handed over to authorities strictly based on valid legal requests.
The idea of having easy to understand privacy indicators is a great one, but many people are skeptic about the fact that all of this relies on websites actually implementing the icons.
It's easy to understand why sites would use the 'good' icons, but there are no incentives for websites to highlight the fact that they're mishandling your data.
Because Mozilla is involved though, Raskin believes the initiative has a chance. The target audience for the icons are second tier websites, not the giants like Google or Facebook that everyone knows about, but sites you may encounter randomly while browsing.
Raskin believes that it this competitive environment, there will be incentives to differentiate themselves from the competition if they have good privacy policies. And if a significant number of sites adopt the icons, the rest may be forced to follow. But even this approach is an optimistic one.
A more practical solution is to support the icons in the browser meaning that Firefox will detect the type of privacy policies a site adopts. If there aren't any, it will display the ones with the poorest guarantees for privacy.
At this point though, there are no official plans to support the Privacy Icons in Firefox. In the end, it will all depend on adoption and the odds are stacked against the project or any similar undertaking.