The recent saga Evernote faced with its privacy policy proves the document’s necessity. But did you know there’s no single federal law mandating its use?

Ernie Smith:

Today in Tedium: You know who’s had a bad week? The folks at Evernote. They’ve been raked over the coals by their users over a change to their privacy policy, that document on nearly every webpage that most people don’t really read unless they’re bored. Well … someone read Evernote’s policy and found out that they were going to let engineers have access to user notes in an anonymized fashion. That didn’t go over well, even after a defense by the company’s CEO. The company announced just a little while ago that they’re backing off the changes they were going to make, but think of it this way—at least there was a privacy policy there at all. What if a company made a change like that without telling you? It’d be scary stuff. Today’s Tedium ponders the online privacy policy. — Ernie @ Tedium