[saagarjha]

You're missing the point, which is that you can slip anything into a privacy policy or other long agreement, no matter how outrageous it may be, and nobody will read it. Putting anything there does not make it ethical or legally binding.

[UncleMeat]

It also doesn't make it unethical. Putting privacy related issues in a privacy policy makes sense to me.

[gibba999]

A privacy policy is definitely the right place for privacy issues. My point is exactly as vharuc made above: Putting something there neither makes it ethical nor unethical. A contract or license is not an excuse for bad behavior.

* If my privacy policy is a copy of HIPAA, that's an ethical privacy policy.

* If my privacy policy is as Google's here, it seems unethical without clear informed consent (which a disclaimer in a novel-long privacy policy doesn't provide).

* If your privacy policy says you'll collect incriminating information about me, and sell it to the highest bidder for use in blackmail, it's unethical even with attempts at informed consent.

[saagarjha]

Putting it in a privacy policy that you expect nobody to read, and using language that they are not accustomed to, is unethical.