Most information management (IM) professionals would agree that well-written policies are clear and concise. Too often, though, the policies are “dumbed down” because someone is afraid that maybe, somewhere, some individual in the organization might not be familiar with one of the technical words used in the policy. The logic is that if one person doesn’t understand the policy as worded, that lack of understanding would be a terrible thing.

On August 22, Justin Schuh, a director on Google’s Chrome Engineering team, introduced the company’s plans for a “privacy sandbox,” a colorful title for its initiative that purports to strengthen web privacy.

Most people associate IM policies with notions like requirements and restrictions. Those connotations are unfortunate because that’s not what writing rules is about.

Written properly, rules are primarily about getting clarity and about target setting. No matter what the field — IM, IT, Security — rules are about helping people do the right thing.