Collaborative Data Privacy for the Web

摘要

While data privacy is a human right, it is challenging to enforce it. For example, if multiple retailers execute a single order at Amazon Marketplace, each retailer can use different agencies for shipment, payment etc., resulting in unmanageable flows of personal data. In this work, we present the Privacy 2.0 system, which enables people to share experiences, observations, and recommendations regarding the privacy practices of data collectors. The basis of Privacy 2.0 is a folksonomy where a user community tags web sites on the Internet with privacy-related labels, e.g., 'no privacy policy' or 'collects too much personal data'. Privacy 2.0 evaluates this folksonomy, and issues a warning if a user is about to enter a web site that has been marked with alarming tags by the majority of users. We have evaluated an operative implementation of our approach by means of a user study. The study indicates that the Privacy 2.0 system helps to assess the privacy practices of service providers and adapts well to a wide range of privacy threats.