British think tank sends bottle of wine to first person who read privacy policy – IT Pro – .Geeks

When most people are presented with a website’s privacy policy, the mouse automatically moves to ‘accept’. A reader of the privacy policy of a British think tank saw the fine print and that earned him a bottle of wine.

The tax think tank Tax Policy Associates had changed its privacy policy in February and added a passage about a free bottle of wine. It said: “We’ll send a bottle of good wine to the first person who reads this.” Founder Dan Neidle had coined the passage ‘as a childish protest’. “All companies should have a privacy policy, but no one reads it. It’s a waste of money,” Neidle told the BBC.

After three months someone signed up for the free bottle of wine. The person, who has not been named, ‘cheated a bit’. He read the policy because he was working on terms of use himself and was looking for examples. The person contacted Tax Policy Associates and assumed the wine would be gone by now, but he still got lucky. Now the privacy policy says: “We know no one is reading this because in February we added a passage saying we would send a bottle of good wine to the first person who contacts us. It wasn’t until May that we got a response.”

This is not the first time that the think tank has included a passage about wine in its terms of use. The organization also did this two years ago. Then it took four months for someone to come forward for the wine.