A couple weeks back, I heard from Jeff Bezos, asking me to check out their new navigation system. It''s not often one hears personally from Time''s Man of the Year. Kind of corny, but it definitely grabs my attention to see "From: Jeff Bezos" in my inbox.

This past Friday, I heard from "Amazon.com Legal Notices" (less sexy, that''s for sure) with a link to their updated privacy policy, Amazon Privacy Notice. They couldn''t have subjected themselves to more fire if they''d worn antlers in central Virginia on the opening day of deer hunting season. I, for one, think that both the strategy and the implementation of their new privacy policy are brilliant.

Implementation Don''ts
Let''s begin with implementation. TrustE used to have a "privacy policy wizard" that sites could use to build their own privacy policies. It created the most legalistic privacy policy one could hope to post to obfuscate the facts about how personal data was being used. It relied on techie-insider lingo such as "Web server logs" and "cookies" (long before anyone without a propeller hat knew that not all cookies were made by Mrs. Field''s). In addition to being very, very precise, it was unintelligible to all but experienced intellectual property lawyers and network administrators. It also created a really long privacy policy, useful to help glaze over the eyes of anyone who wanted to know how his data was being used.

Today TrustE publishes a Model Privacy Statement that you can customize to your needs. It''s much less unintelligible than the privacy policy created by the wizard, but it''s still mighty long.

Implementation Do''s
Part of the reason that Amazon is getting so much criticism for their new privacy policy (I''ve read two diatribes against them just this morning) is that anyone can make sense of it! Imagine that, a privacy policy for the masses! Amazon makes use of clear language and links to details, definitions, and examples outside the policy to keep the policy mercifully short (three and a half pages printed) considering how much it says. There''s even a link to a page on their own site that lists companies that provide anonymous surfing tools, in case you decide that you''d rather shop that way.

Strategic Planning
Amazon is clearly trying to head off the problem that Toysmart.com had when it went into bankruptcy and tried to sell off it''s customer list as an asset, despite the fact that their privacy policy said they wouldn''t share personal data. It''s still an open question whether the customer list will ever be transferred - one the FTC and the bankruptcy court need to resolve together.

Amazon''s new privacy policy does much to anger those who thought that since Amazon was one of them - one of those serving their needs way back in 1997, when very few merchants were available to serve the needs of early adopters - it would never betray them in this way by commercializing their personal data. The indignant ones will now take their business elsewhere, either to sites that don''t say as clearly how their personal data will be used, or to brick-and-mortar stores that aren''t forced to publish any kind of policies about how personal data will be used. Then, when they pay for Fodor''s Pocket 2001 London with their American Express card, and find an offer in their mailbox a week later for a travel club, they''ll naively believe it''s just a coincidence.

The Asset Issue
One element of the privacy policy that''s come under particularly heavy criticism is the way the policy refers to customer data: assets. I think the policy could have used one final pass through the marketing wheels - or at least through the hands of anyone who has ever read Dale Carnegie - to have prevented the appearance of arrogance. Despite the indignation - and indignation is cheap and abundant - customer data is an asset. Customer loyalty, however, is also an asset. Amazon has probably squandered some of the latter in its defense of ownership of the former.

Taking the Arrows
Amazon has always been a trailblazer. Their new privacy policy is no exception. Other merchants should use this opportunity to make equally bold changes to their own privacy policies, to reflect exactly how they would intend to dispose of assets should bankruptcy or takeover become a reality for them. Trailblazers always take the arrows.

Alexis D. Gutzman is an E-commerce Technology Author and Consultant and author of The HTML 4 Bible, FrontPage 2000 Answers!, and ColdFusion 4 for Dummies. Her newest book, The E-commerce Arsenal: 12 Technologies You Need to Prevail in the Digital Arena will be out in October. She can be reached at agutzman@internet.com