91 Are Online Privacy Policies Readable? M. Sumeeth University of Alberta, Canada R.I. Singh University of Alberta, Canada J. Miller University of Alberta, Canada Chapter 5 ABSTRACT This paper examines the question of are on-line privacy policies understandable to the users of the Internet? This examination is undertaken by collecting privacy policies from the most popular sites on the Internet, and analyzing their readability using a number of readability measures. The study finds that the results are consistent regardless of the readability measure utilized. The authors also compare their findings with the results from previous studies. The authors conclude that, on average, privacy policies are becoming more readable. However, these policies are still beyond the capability of a large section of Internet users, and roughly 20% of the policies require an educational level approaching a post-graduate degree to support comprehension. 1. INTRODUCTION Human readable privacy policies are widely used in websites as they allow users to interpret privacy policies without machine intervention. An impor- tant factor in these policies is their readability. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) describes a privacy policy to be a comprehensive description of: a domain's collection of user-related informa- DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-0026-3.ch005 tion, located on a website that may be accessed by clicking on a hyperlink (Federal Trade Com- mission, 1998). The Graham Leach Bliley Act (GLBA), states that policies must be "clear and conspicuous". GLBA's privacy requirements state "organiza- tions or institutions should post a notice that is reasonably understandable and designed to call attention to the nature and significance of the information in the notice" (Anton, 2004). Hence, Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.