Privacy policies are ubiquitous online, and often required by law, but what are they really for? People don't read them, and when they do they have a tendency to misunderstand them, such as with the recent flare-up over poorly-contextualized changes to Spotify's policy. Plus, there's a built in incentive for companies to write their policies as broadly as possible to avoid accidentally violating them, further stripping them of all purpose. This week, we discuss a simple question: are privacy policies an altogether stupid idea?
