Look for a privacy seal.
Check out the company that provides the approval seal. Check to see if the vendor displaying the seal is actually a member, by clicking on the seal. To see if a vendor is a VeriSign Secure Site Seal member, search the Secure Site Index.
If no seal, read their privacy policy. If you don’t like it, leave.
Look for NoExCorProTerm:
- Notification — Do they collect information on consumers?, Exhibition — Do they reveal it to others for any purpose?,Correlation — Do they cross-reference it in any way?, Correction — Do they allow consumers to review collected information and make modifications?, Protection — Do they describe how collected information is secured?,
- Termination — Do they indicate how long information is held, and how it is purged?
The Georgetown Internet Privacy Policy Study has a handy consumer survival manual in the popular Adobe Systems Acrobat Reader format (PDF).
If no policy disclosed, go elsewhere.
An FTC study of March 1998, found that only 14% of 1400 websites had privacy policies. An April 2000 study by enonymous.com checked the 1000 most heavily visited sites, and found that 63% posted some sort of privacy policy. You be the judge.