Privacy Policies of the Web Sites

For this weekly task we have chosen two web-sites -TOPGEAR.COM,

as a part of BBC.COM - the web-site of British Broadcasting Corporation

&

BLIZZARD.COM - the portal of Blizzard Entertainment -
- one of the top companies which produces computer games (StarCraft, Diablo, WarCraft and WoW)

About
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Privacy Policies of almost any web-site have common information, but sometimes it can be written in different ways. Privacy Policies explain what kind of personal information the web-site collects and how, as well how it uses collected info. How the web-site uses users' IP adress, browser cookies. To whom gathered information is shared (in marketing purposes for eg.). As well, Privacy Policies have the information about the users' rights regarding the collection of personal info. Besides that, Privacy Policies provide the information on how the personal information secured and encrypted.

TopGear / BBC
Online Privacy Policy
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As one of examples we chose a web-site of world’s most famous TV program about automobiles and everything related to them. There are two ways of using this web-site: with registration or without it. If the user does not log-in, he loses nearly nothing, the only one significance difference is that it would be impossible for him to post comments. He can still read the articles or watch all the videos.

But if the user decides to register it is not difficult to do that. The button for making that is in the top right corner. All the information that is asked from the new user is ordinary, nothing special: screen name, e-mail, and password. Like on most other web-sites to complete the registration the user has to put a tick at the sentence saying “Tick this box if you accept our terms & conditions and code of conduct” that contains links to the documents itself.

What seems a little bit strange for us is that the page of registration contains links only to Terms & Conditions and Code of Conduct. But in Terms&Conditions document there is a sentence “By accessing and using our website and any content and features therein… , you indicate your acceptance of these Terms, the Privacy Policy, the Code of Conduct and any other notice. The Privacy Policy and Code of Conduct can be accessed from links at the bottom of our webpages.” So if the user wants to see how information about him might be used he has to find the document himself. As it was said before, Top Gear belongs to BBC Company so the privacy policies of the web-site about automobiles are the same as of bbc.co.uk. That is why we found the document at the site of BBC.

The document is written with a simple language accessible for everyone. It includes 15 points; all of them are not that large so if the user wants to read the whole document it would not take him much time to do that. The BBC uses cookies and collects IP addresses from visitors to the BBC websites. IP address can be used for several purposes like blocking disruptive use, counting number of visits from different countries and also re-directing the user to the local versions of the web-site in some cases.

What is important is that if the BBC proposes using personal information for any other uses except said in Private Policies, they ensure that they notify the user first. This guarantees that private information would not go to some third parties. And the user will also be given the opportunity to withhold or withdraw consent for the use of his personal information. The only one case when BBC might provide users’ info to third parties is when it is required or permitted by law. Speaking about cookies, on the BBC's websites cookies record information about user’s online preferences and allow to tailor the websites to his interests. Information supplied by cookies helps to analyze the profile of visitors and help to provide them with a better user experience. If needed, the user can see the list of cookies and ways to minimize their number following the link mentioned in the document.

All in all, the Privacy Policy of BBC is usual for temped user. The only issue that seemed new to us was point about young users:” If you are aged 16 or under, please get your parent/guardian's permission before you provide any personal information to the BBC. Users without this consent are not allowed to provide us with personal information.” We have never heard that before 16 years old children might have any limitations on using the features about web-site simply about cars. So officially some of our members broke the agreement with the BBC Company not following this rule about 3 years ago.

Blizzard Entertainment
Online Privacy Policy
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Privacy policies of the Blizzard Entertainment include information about types of information collected and how is it collected, and also how the company uses collected data. Here we can see that privacy policies explain what is the IP-adress and how it can be used by the company (Blizzard Entertainment), as well we cann see info about the web-browser cookies and how they are used. What is really important in the case with MMO-gaming - Note to Parents. Virtual enviroment can cause some problems if user behaves in the wrong manner and that's why parents should monitor their kids playing such games (Blizzard's World of Warcraft for eg.) Blizzard's Privacy Policies include info on how the information is shared and which rights users have regarding sharing of their personal data. And even more - how they can contribute to the current policies (propose amendments, corrections, etc.). Blizzard Entertainment made a right decision by putting the list of web-sites to which these Privacy Policies extend its influences.

In our opinion, Blizzard Entertainment made their Privacy Policies clear for everyone - you don't need to be a lawer to understand what is behind the words there. Language is plain and doesn't have any jurisdictional terms.

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Blizzard Entertainment Privacy Policies
TopGear/BBC Privacy Policies