By the nature of their business, you'd think hoteliers would have some concern for their customers' privacy. To judge by their privacy and website terms, however, Hilton.com thinks publishing your credit card number is within its rights.

A few days ago, a reader was trying to book a room for the 4th of July at an Embassy Suites, one of many hotel chains owned by Hilton Hotels Corporation (HHC). "When I was about to reserve through their site, which was running a deal better than Travelocity offered, I decided to glance at the privacy clause," wrote the reader. "I found it to be quite interesting. Go to www.hilton.com and click on 'Privacy & Security' and then read section IV. See if I'm interpreting it correctly. The way I read it, all information that you submit as part of a transaction, like booking a room, is now theirs. They reserve the right to do whatever they want with the info, including publish it. That info would include my name, address, credit card number, etc. I booked with Sheraton instead."

Well, yes, I'd say the reader was interpreting it correctly. "You agree that HHC shall own all Information," Hilton's terms state baldly. Further, it says that "such Information belongs to HHC and is not personal or private proprietary information ... (and) may be processed, used, reproduced, modified, adapted, translated, used to create derivative works, shared, published and distributed by HHC in its sole and absolute discretion in any media and manner irrevocably in perpetuity in any location throughout the universe..." Nowhere in the 7000-plus words of what's supposedly a privacy policy does Hilton put any constraints or limitations on how it may use information supplied by customers on its websites.