Technical Communication Quarterly Apr 2005

The Rhetoric of Misdirection in Corporate Privacy-Policy Statements

Mike Markel

Abstract

U.S. businesses wish to continue to profit by collecting personal information from their website visitors, yet they fear that the practice both alienates visitors and exposes them both to legal problems from U.S. authorities and business sanctions from data-privacy authorities in Europe and Canada. This dilemma is reflected in the typical corporate privacy-policy statement, which is full of misleading and deceptive rhetoric intended to cover up the gap between the company's privacy policy and the image it wishes to project.

Journal
Technical Communication Quarterly
Published
2005-04-01
DOI
10.1207/s15427625tcq1402_5
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Open Access
Closed
Topics
rhetorical criticism
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (12)

  1. Jordan (2026)
    Terms of Service and Community Guidelines as “Value-Laden” Documents: An (Adapt…
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  2. Hope et al. (2025)
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  3. Stone et al. (2025)
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  5. Bennett (2025)
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  1. Woods et al. (2024)
    (Re)Designing Privacy Literacy in the Age of Generative AI
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  2. Woods et al. (2024)
    (Re)Designing Privacy Literacy in the Age of Generative AI
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  3. Beck et al. (2021)
    Critical digital literacy as method for teaching tactics of response to online …
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  4. Novotny et al. (2019)
    Data Our Bodies Tell: Towards Critical Feminist Action in Fertility and Period …
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  5. Amant et al. (2009)
    Examining the Information Economy: Exploring the Overlap between Professional C…
    IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  6. Markel (2009)
    Anti-Employer Blogging: An Overview of Legal and Ethical Issues
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  7. Markel (2006)
    Safe harbor and privacy protection: a looming issue for IT professionals
    IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication

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CrossRef global citation count: 23 View in citation network → Build reading path →

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