Re: [Ekiga-list] Privacy policy of Ekiga

[schoappied <schoappied gmail com>]

Damien Sandras wrote:
> Le lundi 17 mars 2008 à 20:32 +0100, schoappied a écrit :   
>   
> > Damien,
> >
> > As a 'user' of a internetservice, like internet chat or phone, I want to 
> > know which information will be gathered and stored by the service. If 
> > they use information, what for and if there giving or selling 
> > information to third party's. Also I like to know how they protect there 
> > users against violations of privacy.
> >
> > Do you store for example the chat or call sessions? Do you store who 
> > call who and when? And if so, how can we as users delete 'history' or 
> > change the setting so that that sort of information will not be stored.
> >
> > It is not a specific distrust of Ekiga, but in my opinion every internet 
> > service should be protecting there users for misuse or privacy 
> > violations and they should be open about there privacy rules. I think it 
> > would be good if Ekiga can ensure there users that there privacy will 
> > not be violated by the service and that Ekiga shall do there best to 
> > protect there users against it. A sort of statement.
> >
> > As a user I can read that statement/ policy and can decide whether or 
> > not I will use that service.
> >
> > Here are some examples:
> >
> > http://www.skype.com/legal/privacy/general/
> > http://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx
> > http://www.voipbuster.com/en/privacy.html
> > http://www.digium.com/en/company/view-policy.php?id=Privacy-Policy
> >
> > I think your service and software will be more 'open' if you're open, 
> > honest and clear about this, for every (potential) user.
> >     
>
> We only store user names and e-mail addresses and are not a commercial
> company, so perhaps it does not really make sense (as reported by Cam
> Ellison).
>
> However, it can not harm if we add such a notice somewhere. It is on the
> TODO :
> http://wiki.ekiga.org/index.php/Ekiga.net_VoIP_service_subscription#What_about_privacy_and_VoIP_services_.3F
>   
Thanks for your replies.

I do disagree with your statements about that privacy statements is only 
or more needed for commercial services or organisations.  I agree with 
you that some  issues are more likely to happen when the service or 
organisation is commercial (e.g. selling information to third party's). 
But the chance that for example, others can get access to stored chat 
sessions (don't like to find my chat with my girlfriend on Google) or 
that people inside or outside the project will misuse the service, seems 
to me almost equal, and has nothing to do with open source or community 
based.

I'm pleased that the 'statement/ policy' is on the TODO list. Although I 
think it's more important then just 'it can not harm'. I think the 
service and the software will be better for us, the users, if we know 
what the policy of Ekiga is and we don't have to worry about the 
privacy. I also think that more people want to switch  from  Skype to 
Ekiga if Ekiga can give some clear statements and guarantees about the 
privacy, because I know that there're a lot of people who do not like 
the policy of Skype or are a doubting about the policy of (for them) 
vague 'open source' communities.

Please let me know if your policy is on the website, so I can know if 
and/ or how information is stored and how I can remove that or prevent 
it. I promise that I'll try Ekiga when I can agree with your policy ;)

Thanks again and  good luck with  your  project, cause  I'd like to see 
more people switching from  Skype  to  good alternatives and off course 
I'd like to enjoy a good internet phone service myself!

Regards,

Dirk