Disney's policy change applies to information that people submit when registering for its family of Web sites, including Disney.com, ESPN.com and Movies.com. Collecting personal information during registration is a common practice among most major Web sites, providing a way to learn more about users. In Disney's case, the entertainment giant asks people to enter their email address, home address and date of birth.
New registrants who accept Disney's privacy policy during registration also accept all marketing options by default. They have to manually turn them off later if they want to opt out. For currently registered Disney users, the sharing options are turned off. Users can opt in by clicking various options.
A Disney representative said the changes were made to help customer service operate more effectively between its offline and online businesses. In particular, Disney's theme park business has witnessed a lot of crossover from people researching vacations online and then following up with a phone call to representatives.
"As consumers have become more advanced in their online behaviours... it has become clear that it's difficult for us to handle customer service by not sharing information across companies," said Kim Kerscher, a Disney spokeswoman. "So many transactions from the parks business have gone online."
The policy change went into effect 6 November, but some customers have yet to receive the email notifying them of the changes.
The changes are as follows:
Changes in Web privacy policies sometimes cause a stir among users. In October, Yahoo reached a settlement with New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer after an investigation into the Web portal's privacy and marketing policy changes. In March 2002, Yahoo switched people's marketing preferences to receive promotional emails and telemarketing calls by default.
Yahoo agreed to pay Spitzer's office $75,000 (£42,466) to cover investigation costs and said it would provide 30 days' notice to its registered customers before making additional changes to its marketing policies.
