It’s been said the only two certainties in life are death and taxes, but, in the digital age, you can probably add e-mail spam to that list as well. As we’ve observed before on the Reputation.com Blog, spam makes up 94% of all e-mail on the Internet. In case you were wondering, that’s not a typo.

Of course, this begs the question, how is it that so much unsolicited e-mail finds its way our in-boxes? Surely all of those websites we use abide by their promise to “not share data with third parties,” right? Unfortunately, a recent study from the University of California, Berkeley indicates otherwise. As reported in the San Francisco Business Times, the study focused on the many loopholes major companies use to get out of their obligation to protect user data according to their Terms of Service.

From the article:

A U.C. Berkeley report shows that most Internet users don’t understand web site privacy policies, and that major online businesses like Google Inc. freely gather data and share it with affiliated businesses via loopholes in those policies.

Using trackers called “web bugs,” third parties collect user data from many popular web sites, and sites often allow this, even though their privacy policies say they don’t share user data with others.

“Web bugs from Google and its subsidiaries were found on 92 of the top 100 Web sites and 88 percent of the approximately 400,000 unique domains examined in the study,” the authors found.

The key word in the above paragraphs is “affiliate.” This is the way that companies get our of their obligation to not share data with third-parties. Technically, according to the likes of Google, an affiliate company is not the same as a third-party. I’m sure web users would say differently, but that’s another problem highlighted in the study. According to the research, most web users are unsure where they should turn to air their web privacy concerns.

From the article:

On the policy front, the report finds “no one knows who is in charge of protecting privacy” in the United States. People can complain to the Federal Trade Commission and other agencies, but even the FTC’s “principles for behavioral tracking make no mention of any enforcement or accountability.” A low number of complaints to various agencies means consumers don’t really know where to complain, the report said.

Of course, Google isn’t the only company sharing user data with affiliates. Yahoo, MySpace, and, frighteningly, Bank of America are some of the other companies cited in the study. For the full access to the report findings, follow this link.

What does this mean for the average web user?

Well, unfortunately, it is just another sign that individuals have to be extra careful about sharing information online. Even if you have the time to read all the way through every website’s Terms of Service (which would take 200 hours a year, according to the SF Business Times article) most people are unable to comprehend the confusing legalese on the site. This is why people are turning to experts like us at Reputation.com. Managing the complex and ever-changing world of Online Reputation Management is no easy task and we pride ourselves at being on the cutting-edge.