A user-centric evaluation of the readability of privacy policies in popular web sites

Authors:
Ravi Inder Singh;Manasa Sumeeth;James Miller
Affiliations:
Department Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada;Department Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada;Department Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Venue:
Information Systems Frontiers
Year:
2011

Citing 3
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Abstract

This paper reports on a formal subject-based experiment, which seeks to evaluate the readability of privacy policy statements found on the Internet. This experiment uses 50 participants and privacy policies collected from 10 of the most popular web sites on the Internet. It evaluates, using a cloze test, the subjects' ability to comprehend the content of these privacy policies. The paper also compares its results with the results from previous studies on this topic. In general, it finds that privacy policies are "difficult" to comprehend.