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UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

Abstract

The article looks at the threats accompanying online shopping, such as identity theft and aggregated data files. Such issues arise when companies carelessly lose laptops filled with unencrypted data or callously sell data on the open market with collected personally identifying information (PII). The article explains that although privacy policies are supposed to force companies to strengthen their privacy practices they are not always effective because companies often post inconspicuous, vague and legalese-filled policies. These ambiguous postings cause online shoppers to blindly submit PII and ignore privacy practices completely. The article proposes a solution to this problem through the standardization of labels to force all e-commerce homepages to conspicuously post their privacy practices. This would allow for consumers to make better informed decisions before submitting PII.

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