Executive Summary

TRUSTe, the leading online privacy certification organization, has partnered with major online consumer portals and other industry leaders to develop standards and a certification program for downloadable consumer desktop applications.

Program objectives:

• Empower consumers to make informed decisions
• Establish the leading industry-wide standards for developers of downloadable applications
• Identify and elevate trustworthy consumer applications for distributors and marketers
• Protect the valued brands of online advertisers by enabling them to know which applications are trustworthy and which are not.

The Trusted Download Program certification combines strict standards, thorough review, ongoing monitoring, enforcement mechanisms and powerful market incentives.

The Program elevates those applications that meet the certification requirements through a whitelist, thereby providing consumer portals and other businesses a tool to distinguish responsible software applications. For downloadable desktop software developers, the program provides guidance on responsible behavior. A Trusted Download Seal at the point of download allows consumers to recognize applications that provide improved disclosures, more explicit control mechanisms, easier uninstall, and more respect for their personal information.

Trusted Download Sponsors and Advisory Committee Members

C|net download.com, Microsoft, Yahoo!, and the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT)

Incentives for Compliance

TRUSTe serves a “whitelist” of certified applications to advertisers, distributors, consumer portals and other interested parties. In a market where the conduct of partners can be as important as the conduct of your own organization, businesses are turning to TRUSTe to help determine which applications they want to be affiliated with. The Program’s whitelist is regularly used to influence decision making in advertising buys, bundling and distribution opportunities, and to resolve errant blacklistings.

The whitelist, provides an economic incentive for software providers to achieve and maintain certification. In addition, the Trusted Download Seal at the point of download reassures consumers and increases downloads, providing a direct economic benefit to software developers.

Scope

While there are exceptions, the program is aimed at consumer downloadable desktop software applications. It does not cover software downloaded exclusively to handheld devices (i.e. mobile phones). While there are additional specific requirements for advertising and tracking software, many requirements also apply to all consumer downloadable applications. Advertising and tracking software providers will likely need to significantly change current practices to earn certification. In addition, the program will provide standards for all applications to offer consumers enhanced disclosures, easier uninstall and other benefits.

Certification

Application providers submit to TRUSTe a contract and a completed questionnaire including questions about how the application is distributed. TRUSTe conducts a thorough evaluation of the downloadable applications against the program standards to ensure they do not involve activities that are prohibited by the Program. Additional compliance assurance is being provided by AppLabs, a third party software testing lab that will evaluate the application’s relay of information and interaction with the recipient’s operating system.

Key Program Elements

The Program outlines certain requirements for all software and specifies additional requirements for advertising and tracking software. This approach ensures that the Program addresses practices that historically have created consumer confusion and anxiety. However, all software must meet specific program requirements and is tested for monitoring, relays, and behaviors that have historically been considered deceptive.

Notice
The Program imposes a layered approach, via a primary notice and reference notices such as the End User License Agreement, EULA, and the privacy statement. The primary notice must explain functionalities that impact the consumer experience and must be unavoidable, to ensure that users understand what they are downloading. EULAs and “opt-out” mechanisms are insufficient for providing such notice or obtaining consent. For example, unavoidable notice of any material changes to certain specified consumer settings is required for all software. Further, all ads delivered in certified advertising software must be labeled, and unavoidable notice of certain ad features must be provided.

Consent to Install is Required
Consumers must be offered notice and an opportunity to consent that is described in plain language and is as prominently displayed as the option to not install. Consent to install may not be obtained with a pre-selected option.

Easy Uninstall
Instructions for uninstallation must be easy to find and easy to understand, and methods for uninstalling must be available in places where consumers are accustomed to finding them, such as the Add/Remove Programs feature in the Windows Control Panel, or the Add-On management menus in browsers for browser Add-Ons. Uninstallation must remove all software associated with the particular application being uninstalled (with a few specific exceptions carved out in the Program Requirements), and cannot be contingent on a consumer’s providing Personally Identifiable Information, unless that information is required for account verification.

Prohibited Activities
No company can have an application certified if any of its applications exhibits a behavior listed in the Program’s Prohibited Activities section.

Examples of prohibited activities include:

• Taking control of a consumer’s computer
• Modifying security or other settings of the computer to cause damage or harm
• Spyware tactics for surveillance and tracking, such as keystroke logging
• Preventing reasonable efforts to block installation or to uninstall
• Allowing a certified application to be bundled with any application currently engaging in any of the prohibited activities

Special Protections for Children
Companies in the Program must prevent the distribution of their advertising or tracking software on children’s websites --including by prohibiting their distribution partners and affiliates from such distribution.

Affiliate Controls
Since many advertising and tracking applications are distributed through second and third-party affiliates and/or bundled with other programs; relationships must be disclosed in attestations. Certified software is subject to random testing on instances found wherever an individual might encounter them.

Prior Behavior
The Program includes provisional certification for companies that have previously engaged in prohibited activities or other behaviors that call into question the Participant’s ability to comply with the Program Requirements on an ongoing basis. In order to be certified, these companies will be subject to additional oversight including enhanced monitoring and a requirement to go back to all users who downloaded an uncertified version of the software application and obtain their opt-in consent.

Segregated Ad Inventory
Companies in the Program must maintain segregated ad inventory in certified versus uncertified applications. The application provider must be able to serve ads to users from whom consent was obtained versus users from whom consent has not been acceptably obtained.

Monitoring
Certified applications are monitored by TRUSTe for ongoing compliance with the Program’s strict standards. A company risks termination from the program if any one of its certified applications violates the standards.

Enforcement
If monitoring uncovers suspected non-compliance, an application, or in some cases all of a company’s applications, will be subjected to enforcement procedures by TRUSTe. Depending on severity and the results of a TRUSTe investigation, an application may be temporarily suspended or permanently removed from the program whitelist. In certain cases, a company or application may be terminated from the Program and the fact of its termination made public.