InformationWeek

July 17, 2000

Privacy Evaluation: eCircles

By Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT).

ECircles is a community-building site that provides a place to upload photos, have discussions, post announcements, plan events, and have online chats with others in an invitation-only group. Generally, the policy is straightforward and underscores that the consumer is engaged in a transaction of services for information. It ends with this line: "If you do not consent to the terms of this Privacy Policy, please do not use this Site." The whole thing is only about two pages long, but it's pretty specific about what information is collected, how it's collected, and how it might be used. Seals
Trust-e

Information Collection

Type of Information	Collected?
Cookies	Session, navigation tracking, ad exposure
Anonymous information	Yes, mostly through cookies
Personal information	Name, E-mail required. Lots of other "optional" information collected, including gender, birthday, address, some financial.
IP address	Yes
Referrer	Yes
Ad view and usage	Yes (Flycast)

Information Sharing

Information Type	Shared?
Name, E-mail, etc.	Used, shared with partners
Site usage	Used, shared with partners and advertisers
Demographics	Used, shared with partners and advertisers
Aggregate information	Shared with partners and advertisers

Privacy Policy Features

Feature	Implemented?
Notice	Yes
Security	Sort of. Not collected through secure connection.
Options	Limited to how often eCircles will use the information, not how it will be shared
Access	Ability to update via form or contact person at vendor. Can�t tell if it can be deleted.