TRUSTe
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| Private | |
| Industry | Internet Privacy |
| Founded | 1997 |
| Headquarters | 835 Market Street, San Francisco, California, USA |
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Key people
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CEO: Chris Babel - CFO: Tim Sullivan - VP Product: Kevin Trilli - VP Marketing: Dave Deasy |
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Number of employees
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130 |
| Website | www.truste.com |
TRUSTe is a technology compliance and security company based in San Francisco, California. The company helps corporations update their technology so that it complies with government laws, or operates using best practices.
TRUSTe (originally named eTRUST until a copyright conflict was found) was founded as a non-profit industry association in 1997 by Lori Fena, then executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and Charles Jennings, a software entrepreneur, with the mission of fostering online commerce by helping businesses and other online organizations self-regulate privacy concerns. Toward this end TRUSTe launched its flagship Privacy Seal Program, providing privacy seals to websites who abide by a set of fair information privacy practices and agreed to participate in the company's consumer privacy dispute resolution service.
TRUSTe was developed from an earlier program named Privacy Assured launched in 1996 by Tim Dick, CEO of WorldPages which was later acquired by BT. The initial five members were match.com, Four11 / Yahoo!, NetAngels, I/PRO (first web metrics company), and WorldPages. Within two months, over 30 companies had joined Privacy Assured, with more waiting. Privacy Assured approached EFF about setting up an independent entity and learned that EFF was contemplating an internet privacy initiative. Tim Dick brought in his former colleagues at Boston Consulting Group which did a landmark pro-bono study which established much of the internet privacy principles in use today, and on which TRUSTe remains built.
TRUSTe's founding Executive Director, Susan Yamada, formerly editor of Upside Magazine, served until 2001. In 2000, TRUSTe became the first organization to join the U.S. Department of Commerce's, and the European Union's safe harbor framework, and subsequently launched its EU Safe Harbor Seal Program. The US-EU Safe Harbor was agreed upon by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the European Union to provide a framework for American companies to comply with European data and privacy standards.
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