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Study Reveals Similar Privacy Practices in the U.S. and U.K. Despite Lack of Legislation in U.S.
A comparative study of e-commerce privacy disclosure and practices in the U.S. and U.K. reveals that the codification of privacy practices in the U.K. has not resulted in improved privacy practices in the U.K. relative to the U.S.
The authors of this study conducted research in the U.K., which enforces the European Directive on Data Protection, and the U.S., where there is little government privacy regulation or enforcement. For example, they found that subscribers to e-commerce websites in the two countries received about the same frequency of junk e-mail, and that most websites in both countries honoured opt-out choices made by customers. Interestingly, the study found that the disclosure of privacy practices (display of privacy policy on a website) in the U.K. was perhaps worse than in the U.S., despite the disclosure requirements of the U.K. privacy laws.
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