An interesting piece of research from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) today. It reports on consumers’ less than flattering views of small print – the dreaded, often meaningless drivel that so often accompanies services, particularly financial ones.

It’s hard to get away from of course, because you have to spell out what someone is signing up for, but at Wonga we believe in trying to make our privacy policy and our loan terms as simple to understand as possible. That approach applies to the entire Wonga website and you won’t find any jargon here.

Here’s an extract from a Press Association article about the research…

Almost half of consumers believe companies use small print to make money out of them, a survey has revealed.

Some 42% of respondents to a poll about privacy and marketing thought firms used small print to sell on their details and almost 50% said it was deliberately designed to be as woolly as possible.

The results come from a study by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which is calling for an overhaul of privacy and marketing small print.

The watchdog uncovered widespread cynicism among consumers – with half the sample saying they did not understand paper and online forms.

Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said: “Too many privacy notices involve too much small print and too much confusing gobbledegook. Privacy notices are an important way to inform individuals and ensure that organisations are open about how they use personal information.

“But no-one should need a magnifying glass or a lawyer to find out what will happen to their information, what their choices are and what their rights are. Too many privacy notices are written to protect organisations, rather than to inform consumers. What chance do people have if privacy notices are written in complex legalese?”

The ICO is concerned that too many companies baffle customers and wants organisations to make their privacy notices much clearer. The organisation has launched a national consultation on a new Code of Practice designed to help organisations provide more user-friendly privacy notices.

If you ever come up against a barrage of jargon elsewhere, feel free to check out the Wonga jargon buster!

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 12th, 2009 at 12:41 pm