CC-inspired projects for Terms of Service and Privacy policies
Over the years, several projects have started with the intention of doing for Terms of Services and/or Privacy policies what Creative Commons has done for Copyright notices. Most of these projects have been abandoned after a while, but some are still alive.
Please add to the list if you have relevant information!
Contents
Privacy Icons
http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/privacy-icons/
Started by Aza Raskin while he was working for Mozilla, this project has done a great job drafting icons to describe a select set of privacy parameters. Being a Mozilla project, there's a chance that the icons may be presented in a dedicated browser panel rather than on a webpage somewhere on a website. Last known activity: December 2010.
CommonTerms
Initially focusing on Terms of Service rather than Privacy Policies. Currently (September 2011) analyzing ToS documents to find common terms, and planning to create icons and associated legal definitions for those. Run by Pär Lannerö with support from the Swedish Internet fund.
Privacy commons
Draft icons by Aaron Helton described for example who owns User Generated Content: User, provider company or shared ownership. Last known activity: February 2009
Know privacy
Report from a project by students at the UC Berkely School of Information in 2009. Drafted icons describing how user's data is being collected and shared.
Netzpolitik
Matthias Mehldau created a large set of icons answering the questions "What data is collected", "How is my data handled", "For what purpose" and "For how long". Last known activity: 2007
European privacy open space
EU project proposed the idea of cc-like icons but no icons as far as I know. Last known activity: 2009
Clearware
Proposed a rather extensive set of icons to summarize common terms found in End User License Agreements (EULAs). Last known activity: 2006
Privacy labels
http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/privacyLabel/
Research by the CUPS group at Carnegie Mellon University. Did not produce icons, but proposed and evaluated a standardized table format for the presentation of privacy information. Produced research papers provide many valuable insights. Last known activity: 2010
Internet Governance Forum
In 2006, Mary Rundle from Harvard University gave a presentation at the IGF meeting, proposing a small set of draft icons to symbolize how user data might be treated by online service providers.
Trust-e http://www.truste.com
Commercially provides a certification for websites whose Privacy policies adhere to some basic quality requirements defined by Truste
TOSback http://www.tosback.org
EFF project tracking changes to TOS documents for popular online services.
I agree to http://www.iagreeto.org
Re-design of Apple iTunes Terms of Service by Gregg Bernstein, providing great inspiration for anybody trying to simplify and make online contracts more accessible. Last known activity: September 2011.
OwnTerms http://ownterms.pbworks.com/w/page/6985495/FrontPage
Proposal by Tom Scott to provide CC-licensed boilerplate Terms of Service documents (and other contracts). Last known activity: 2009
Lex publica http://lexpubli.ca/
Company intending to adopt the OSS model to legal documents: provide the legal code (CC licensed contract document templates) for free but selling consulting. Last known activity: January 2010.
Iubenda http://www.iubenda.com
Italian company offering a simple tool to create easy-to-understand Terms of Service documents. Last known activity: September 2011
