TRUSTe Answers the Questions

By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Did they answer the questions or just make statements? You be the judge.

Wayne Porter: 1) When TRUSTe learns of a company with outrageously bad practices — like Webhancer becoming installed without users’ consent — why not just terminate the company’s certification right then? Why wait months or years?

Carolyn Hodge: First, I’d like to disabuse everyone of the idea that it is profit motive that keeps TRUSTe from terminating companies. We have turned away more than fifty sites with software since 2005, we don’t certify upwards of 12% of applicant sites, and in many cases very large potential sealholders are not able to complete certification because of our requirements or our legal agreements.

There is an argument to be made for terminating immediately – and yes, this would punish a company for alleged bad behavior. There is also an argument to be made for executing our mission – to increase trust between businesses and consumer. To accomplish that mission, TRUSTe changes business practices for the benefit of consumers, and there are some limiting factors that keep this from occurring immediately:

1) TRUSTe must investigate independently
2) Contractually, we can only certify to, and enforce standards within our program requirements, so we need to develop new standards to handle emerging issues
3) TRUSTe can require these companies to be responsive to consumer complaints if we still have them under contract.

In the case of Webhancer and other software, TRUSTe recognized in early 2005, when we participated in the Anti-Spyware Coalition events, that we did not have the internal capability to test software, or reasonable standards to offer software publishers. TRUSTe has built the Trusted Download Program to address that gap, and have built the process and policies to test downloadable software, in cooperation with AppLabs, our testing lab partner.

We Say: Read the answers for yourself here, and then take a gander at some questions she wanted to ask Ben Edelman here, I bet he has better answers than she did.