Originally posted on Reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/cfgt4f/idea_make_a_website_for_listing_the_known_privacy/

I’ve noticed that a core challenge for privacy conscious individuals is figuring out which services are privacy friendly, which are okay, and which are thinly veiled spyware. I’m thinking of doing something to try and fix that for my next programming hobby project. A website where people can submit information on the privacy implications of different online services, including posting articles on past and present scandals, collectively interpret the privacy policy and translate from “Lawyer” to “Average Human”, and post information gathered from monitoring of applications and websites, among others. Like a Wikipedia for privacy concerns (maybe even base it off the Wiki content management platform).

Do any of you think this is would be a good idea? Any suggestions for functionality or design? Does something like this already exist?

    • AgreeableLandscapeOPM
      1·
      5 years ago

      I’m more thinking of something like this but also lists the historical privacy violations made by the company.

      • appa
        3·
        5 years ago

        Something that for Facebook would look like this?

        • 2014 emotional contagion social experiment
        • 2016 Cambridge Analytica data dump
        • 2020 nine click process to claw back some semblance of boundries
        • LofenyyM
          1·
          5 years ago

          I think something like that would be ideal. It reminds me of what Stallman does on his website.

      • k_o_t
        2·
        5 years ago

        but what aspects of privacytools do you not like? it seems very good at covering most popular apps/programs/services/websites…

        • AgreeableLandscapeOPM
          1·
          5 years ago

          I mainly want a record of what privacy violations a company has committed historically, and what violations they continue to commit.

          Not sure if privacytools already has this though.

          • k_o_t
            4·
            5 years ago

            It sort of does. For example on operating systems page there’s a description why win10 is bad. And there are similar pages for the most severe examples in other fields. You can kind of assume that almost anything not mentioned there that is reasonably large of a project to be noticed, has had some sort of privacy abuse. But it would interesting to maintain a track record anyway.

            Also if you want specifically the very privacy violations and other sorts of misdeeds, there’s also the What’s bad about section of Stallman’s website.