Privacy Parrot
Security and privacy
privacy policy analysis
SHOW HN2011
Privacy Parrot
AI tool reads privacy policies, tells you which sites sell your info.
privacyparrot.com145points
71comments
#62of 1,097 in 2011
Top 6%of 2011 by points
How HN took it
MixedNo clear lean
7 positive, 21 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 19 critical, out of 48 comments about the project. Thread score -0.30.
Execution: 0 for, 14 againstIdea: 7 for, 3 againstPerformance: 0 for, 1 againstPrivacy: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Useful privacy tool with good potential
From 3 comments
Thank you so much for the effort. This is really something useful. Would love to see more projects on making privacy themes more accessible.
01PH on HNAs for 3: A simple feature to add would be to add a form for users to submit samples (links, comments). BTW: Cool tool with a lot of potential! See also…
eitland on HNI love this idea, but here's how I think it could be improved: 1. Consider porting the entire service to a browser extension for Chrome or Firefox, and making the homepage more…
dylangs1030 on HN
Browser extension idea well received
From 2 comments
If you made a Google Chrome or Firefox extension I'd install (both of) them. In fact, porting this service to an extension seems more logical and streamlined if it could push…
dylangs1030 on HNIt'd be interesting to have a browser extension based on this popping up a warning on websites with a suspicious privacy policy.
jakubw on HN
Objections
Classifier misreads policies, e.g. negations and bankruptcy clauses
From 3 comments
Might I suggest adding at least this sentence to the training set: "We sell your private information." Your Policizer happily tells me that the sentence means "They DO NOT sell…
raphman on HNOf the two sites of mine that I checked, one came up as "Danger! Warning! They're going to sell your information in case of a Bankruptcy!!!" Why? Reading one of the submitter's…
jasonkester on HNI tried the policizer with some copy and pasted policies but it frequently told me "CAN SELL" just because the text did not include any specifics regarding selling and bankruptcy…
giulivo on HN
Site slow and fails on subdomains
From 3 comments
The site is loading extremely slowly. Might I suggest you turn off, or dramatically reduce, the KeepAliveTimeout? Header: ``` Connection:Keep-Alive Date:Fri, 11 Nov 2011 01:27:19…
carbocation on HNIt does not appear to like subdomains. I've been trying to get it to visit http://news.ycombinator.com and see what it thinks. But I keep getting back, We were unable to connect…
simcop2387 on HNWhy does it automatically add www in front of what I type in the URL box? If I type in news.ycombinator.com, it says "www.news.ycombinator.com does not exist". Well, yes. That's…
jrockway on HN
Trusting a machine to interpret legal text is risky
From 3 comments
Would you trust such a lawyer? No offense to the developer, I think he id a terrific job, but trusting a machine to parse a contract for something fishy seems a little too...…
gglanzani on HNI'm not a lawyer but... How can someone trust you to parse the policies correctly? What if someone sues you for incorrectly interpreting a policy which they then use to make a…
simonbrown on HNDo you have a background in this (re: JD)? This is a very complicated task. In fact it's such a tricky task that I think you might be better off just building a database of…
a3camero on HN
Requests
Browser extension
From 3 comments
I love this idea, but here's how I think it could be improved: 1. Consider porting the entire service to a browser extension for Chrome or Firefox, and making the homepage more…
dylangs1030 on HNIt'd be interesting to have a browser extension based on this popping up a warning on websites with a suspicious privacy policy.
jakubw on HNIf you made a Google Chrome or Firefox extension I'd install (both of) them. In fact, porting this service to an extension seems more logical and streamlined if it could push…
dylangs1030 on HN
Release source code
From 2 comments
Just curious, if it could highlight the offending phrases it used to figure out the difference between selling, not selling, and bankruptcy selling. This way when we put in our…
jeremyarussell on HNWhere's the code? Seriously, where's the code? Your server seems to be getting hit pretty hard. Would be nice to be able to hack on it and to be able to host a mirror.
omouse on HN
Track and diff policy changes
From 2 comments
Would it be possibly to also identify sites that share your information? A great example: facebook.com Does not sell your private information. But they obviously do share…
rednaught on HNDiffs of privacy policies would be excellent! And notifications as well.
bostonvaulter2 on HN
Separate bankruptcy sale from selling data
From 1 comment
Of the two sites of mine that I checked, one came up as "Danger! Warning! They're going to sell your information in case of a Bankruptcy!!!" Why? Reading one of the submitter's…
jasonkester on HN
Questions
How the classifier works and what features it uses
From 1 comment
I am just learning some of these machine learning tools and am rapt, so forgive me for asking, but would you be able to explain a little about what you are doing? How are you…
samg_ on HN
Whether the tool can handle sites that share data without selling it
From 1 comment
Would it be possibly to also identify sites that share your information? A great example: facebook.com Does not sell your private information. But they obviously do share…
rednaught on HN
Alternatives named
EULA analyzer at javacoolsoftware.com
From 1 comment
As for 3: A simple feature to add would be to add a form for users to submit samples (links, comments). BTW: Cool tool with a lot of potential! See also…
eitland on HN
freeprivacypolicy.com policy generator
From 1 comment
In a galaxy far away there was once conceived the idea of a machine readable privacy policy ... checking the interwebs reveals that http://www.w3.org/P3P/ was updated for the…
route66 on HN
P3P machine-readable privacy policies
From 1 comment
In a galaxy far away there was once conceived the idea of a machine readable privacy policy ... checking the interwebs reveals that http://www.w3.org/P3P/ was updated for the…
route66 on HN