One more reason to add human readable icons privacy policies:
Researchers Aleecia McDonald and Lorrie Faith Cranor of Carnegie Mellon University looked at online privacy policies and how long it would take to read them. While one policy they looked at was just 144 words long, they found one policy on a popular site that ran to 7,669 words, around 15 pages of text. (Note from Brian: Disney has a 63 page privacy policy on their new sleeping beauty DVD)
The average length of privacy policies used by the 75 most popular US websites is 2,500 words, the research found. Using the reading speed of 250 words per minute which is typical for those who have completed secondary education, the average policy would take 10 minutes to read.
The length of privacy policies is often cited as one reason they are so commonly ignored. “Studies show privacy policies are hard to read, read infrequently, and do not support rational decision making,” said the researchers, acknowledging the fact that the policies are rarely read.
The researchers used their data to estimate how much it costs US citizens to read the privacy policy of every site they visit once a year if their time was charged for. Were people to actually read the policies and charge for that time it would cost $652 billion a year.
