Topic: Privacy ratings?

[cadtag]

Does anyone know of a group that rates/publishes rating of company privacy policies, or provides some means to compare the relative value attached to customer privacy by a software vendor?  Having read Autodesk's privacy policy, I'd like to know if it's as poor as it seems on the face.  My gut says that it's earned a grade of D-, but I would like some broader perspective from a group that evaluates a number of firms.  My gut may be biased by Autodesk's historically poor record of handling personal data and security.

[Crank]

[cadtag]

Well, that does seem to summarize the ToS for their cloud offerings....

[dgorsman]

Most second-hand reporting of sites like those show poor ratings to anything short of fully open-source code and wish for those providing services, software, or <other> to assume all the risk and most (if not all) of the cost.  So for me, they are highly suspect of some rather extreme biases.

[LiteD]

I don't think it is reasonable to talk about privacy in relation to Autodesk, Adobe, Microsoft or Google and Facebook. There is nothing private in your data linked with product which you have purchased. And it is OK.
But there is another threat from Autodesk - DWG file format. It is closed and there are up to 10% of its space unused by drawing data. What can be stored there for future usage by someone?

[mjfarrell]

I don't think it is reasonable to talk about privacy in relation to Autodesk, Adobe, Microsoft or Google and Facebook. There is nothing private in your data linked with product which you have purchased. And it is OK.
But there is another threat from Autodesk - DWG file format. It is closed and there are up to 10% of its space unused by drawing data. What can be stored there for future usage by someone?

yet another reason to NOT use their 'cloud' service

[cadtag]

I don't think it is reasonable to talk about privacy in relation to Autodesk, Adobe, Microsoft or Google and Facebook. There is nothing private in your data linked with product which you have purchased. And it is OK.

Not sure I'd call it 'ok'....  but that's my gut feeling.

But there is another threat from Autodesk - DWG file format. It is closed and there are up to 10% of its space unused by drawing data. What can be stored there for future usage by someone?

Closed,as in undocumented by the author, but the DWG formats, at least prior to 2013, have been reverse engineered and that information is available to ODA members.  I don't know about the latest DGN files -- since Bentley pulled out of their commitment to ODA I've not happened to hear anything.  Not being a uStn user, Bentley is not on my radar much.  All I ever seem to hear are complaints about them....

I would imagine the 2013 format change is already being dissected and that the ODA libraries will soon be updated.

[cadtag]

Most second-hand reporting of sites like those show poor ratings to anything short of fully open-source code and wish for those providing services, software, or <other> to assume all the risk and most (if not all) of the cost.  So for me, they are highly suspect of some rather extreme biases.

I'm not looking for open sourcing the code, just a rating of some sort that compares published privacy policies from a number of entities, from EFF to Twitter.  I expect a range of results (with Facebook probably coming in at the low end, and the Mayo CLinic coming in at the high end).  When I (as a non-professional in privacy policy and law) look at a published policy, I don't have anything to compare it with, and am looking for information to help evaluate it.  That an entity publishing such ratings may have an agenda is possible, but their bias can be taken into consideration.