Dear Yahoo! Store Merchant: We'd like to take this opportunity to inform you about a very important upcoming privacy study by the Georgetown University School of Business that may concern you as a Web site operator. As you may know, online privacy became a hotly debated topic in 1998. The Federal Trade Commission released a study in June 1998 (conducted in March 1998) that showed a large majority of Web sites collected personal information from people online. However, only a small fraction of those sites informed their visitors about how that personal information was to be used via a privacy statement. Part of the FTC study addressed children's privacy and the results were even worse. Because of the poor result of the children's study the FTC recommended, and Congress enacted, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. In order to determine if the online industry has made acceptable progress, the FTC is closely watching a follow-up study by Professor Mary Culnan, of the Georgetown University School of Business, that will again review online privacy practices. This is expected to take place in March of this year, approximately one year after the original study. If no significant progress is shown, the FTC has indicated that it will recommend that Congress legislate online privacy for all Web sites, much in the same way it legislated children's privacy. The FTC has also indicated that it is particularly interested in the privacy practices of commerce sites. It is possible that your Web site will be one of the many that this study will review. Because of this, we urge you to consider adopting and posting a privacy policy on your site before or during March if you have not done so already. We at Yahoo! have had a privacy policy since early 1998 and have links to our policy everywhere that we collect personal information from our users. Many other prominent Web sites, including well-known commerce sites, have privacy policies. These sites include Amazon.com, eBay, Lands End, L.L. Bean, Cyberian Outpost, eToys, Furniture.com and Virtual Vineyards, among others. Many visible Yahoo! Stores also have privacy policies such as DigitalChef.com, Fredericks of Hollywood and the Denver Broncos store, just to name a few. In addition to having a privacy policy, Yahoo! is a member of TRUSTe and the Online Privacy Alliance and we comply with their guidelines on fair information practices. TRUSTe is a "seal" program that certifies the privacy policies and practices of their licensees and works to resolve consumer issues with its licensees. The Online Privacy Alliance is an ad-hoc organization of more than 80 leading companies and over a dozen industry organizations that advocates the posting of privacy policies and adherence to fair information practices. You can visit TRUSTe at http://www.TRUSTe.org and the Online Privacy Alliance at http://www.privacyalliance.com . These, and other useful links, are available on the Yahoo! Store site at http://store.yahoo.com/privacylinks.html . As members of the online community, we at Yahoo! believe that it is very important that our industry be allowed to continue to self-regulate. We have made tremendous progress this year and believe that we can continue to demonstrate positive momentum with respect to online privacy without government legislation. The Internet moves too quickly to be subject to laws that may stifle growth and that could be rendered obsolete shortly after they are enacted. If we, as an industry, fail to demonstrate our commitment to self-regulation, there is no question that government will intervene and regulate yet another aspect of the Internet. Please help us to show our industry's commitment to online privacy by posting a privacy policy and following fair information practices on your site. If you are interested in learning more about online privacy and what the FTC is looking for in a privacy statement, we suggest that you contact Jon Mackey, Business Development Manager for TRUSTe. He can be reached at (650) 856-1527 or at jmackey@truste.org . Jon is extremely knowledgeable about online privacy and can be of much greater assistance to you regarding this matter than your Yahoo! sales representative or myself, so please contact him directly. Our role is to bring this important issue to your attention. TRUSTe has been working with industry, government and advocacy groups since this debate began over a year ago. They can provide technical assistance to you in drafting a privacy policy or simply assist you in better understanding online privacy issues. If you have already posted a privacy policy on your site, we sincerely applaud your initiative. You may want to take this opportunity to do some additional research to make sure your policy, your site's links to that policy and your information practices meet the minimum standard that government is looking for. Thank you for considering this important and timely issue. Sincerely,
Srinija Srinivasan
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Yahoo! Inc.