Call for input on the new Wikimedia Foundation privacy policy

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Since the launch of Wikipedia in 2001, the community has grown from a few inspired individuals to tens of thousands of volunteers, working on twelve official Wikimedia Projects, in hundreds of languages, with the support of chapters and user groups around the world. Whether you have been a member of the movement for five years or five minutes, there is one common thread that connects all of us, and that is our dedication to the mission of spreading free knowledge throughout the world.
Where we are now.
As stewards of this deeply-connected community, the Wikimedia Foundation takes seriously our role in protecting and encouraging the work of Wikimedians everywhere. You are the reason the Wikimedia Projects continue to educate and inform the world, and we value your opinion on the issues that matter to you.
We know that privacy is important to you, especially in light of recent events. We will continue to stand by the commitment to collect far less data than other major websites, to limit use of your data for research and analytics and to improve your Wikimedia experience, and to never sell your data or use it for commercial purposes.
We also recognize that our policies need to adapt to the changing legal and technological landscape. Our current privacy policy has not changed since 2008, and we believe it is time to update our terms to stay true to what the community and Projects are today. Thus, we are in the process of creating a new privacy policy to better serve you and to better explain how your data is collected, used and shared.
You deserve a privacy policy that is clear and straightforward in its terms, one that details exactly what information we collect and what we do with that information, and one that reflects community values and feedback.
To do this, we want and need your input.
One of our goals for this undertaking is transparency, both in the policy-drafting process and in the terms of the policy itself. For the next month, we would like to open a dialogue with community members to discuss key privacy issues, including cookies (no raisins), data security (hooray!) and third-party advertisements (no, thank you).
This initial consultation period will last until July 18, 2013. Once we have completed a draft of the new privacy policy, we will then open a lengthier community consultation period so that you have the opportunity to review the draft and provide more detailed feedback.
As members of the community, your input is invaluable. This is why we are kicking off an open discussion period now, so your voices can be heard, and so we can incorporate your feedback as we draft a new privacy policy.
Send us your questions, comments, and concerns.
What do you like and what do you not like about the current policy? What do you think should or should not be in the new policy? What community values should the new policy embody? Do you have any concerns about past or current Wikimedia Foundation privacy practices? Are there recent U.S. or international privacy trends that you want us to consider?
Please contribute your comments, questions, and suggestions here.
The Wikimedia Foundation values the community members, and it is our hope that through collaboration and consultation, we can create a privacy policy that gives all of us the freedom to continue experimenting, learning and bettering the Wikimedia Projects, while maintaining our dedication to the privacy.
Thank you.
Michelle Paulson [1]
Legal Counsel, Wikimedia Foundation
[With our appreciation, we ask the international Wikimedia community to help in translating this blog post into other languages, as well as people’s feedback given throughout the course of this consultation period.]
Notes

  1. [1] Special thanks to the Tech and LCA teams for their help on this initiative, with a special call out to Tiffany Li, Legal Intern, for her assistance on this blog post.

Archive notice: This is an archived post from blog.wikimedia.org, which operated under different editorial and content guidelines than Diff.

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What does “no raisins” mean? There’s no Wikipedia article on them.

Just referring to cookies of the edible variety, as opposed to the locally stored data variety. =)

I understand that policy hasn’t changed since 2008 and it makes me cringe about English orientated attitudes, and ego’s, I should know I’m guilty as well. When you come here with idea’s and typing them in on your “own” talk page I didn’t realize I was in the court of Henry VIII, how foolish of me. In the ethos of Icarus I will remain silent until………..

Thankyou for the opportunity to contribute to the Wikipedia effort: the open call is good idea and I suppose that I am a user of your services that you may be referring so I will be commenting now in case that I am not availbable June 18th, I think your privacy policy deserves an overhaul to include the obligation of nondeception in our democracy that public figures and government ones must work with openness to our scrutiny so any information pertinent to the lives of those holding public office the Citizen should know of be made capable of with the… Read more »