Online Trust Alliance

What it reported doing in 2016

In april 2017, the board of directors agreed to merge and fold ota into the internet society, a like-minded 501c3 organization. Through july 2017 ota completed the transition process including extending membership to all ota members. Some of the activities that support ota's mission to enhance online trust and user empowerment while promoting innovation and the vitality of the internet include: " the online trust honor roll and audit" - in june 2017, ota released the 9th annual online trust audit reviewing over 1,000 sites, with added criteria and analysis including a doubling of the federal government sector to bring all sectors to a minimum of 100 sites, and the addition of the isp/hosters sector to evaluate broadband providers and web hosters. The honor roll is a comprehensive evaluation of the world's top websites for domain/brand protection, privacy and security practices. Annually ota solicits comments from the public regarding new criteria and scoring for future years' audits, reflecting the evolution of security and privacy standards and practices. The audit underscored the importance of continued monitoring and management of security and privacy settings and practices of sites and mobile applications. Https://otalliance.org/trustaudit. " vision for trust educational white papers" - ota published a series of white papers focused on key trust issues in various areas - "iot vision for the future", "securing the internet of things - a collaborative & shared responsibility", "vision for trusted email", and "vision for trustworthy advertising". Https://otalliance.org/vision. " the data protection & cyber incident readiness guide" - released in january 2017 and first published in 2011, ota publishes a prescriptive guide to help assist businesses to prepare, detect, mitigate and respond to data loss incidents. Ota subsequently held multiple online briefings and webinars to help reach and educate the business community. The 2017 report was expanded in several areas including redefining the scope to a broader set of cyber incidents including ransomware, expanded prevention, best practices, risk assessment and cyber insurance considerations along with additional risk assessment check lists. Https://otalliance.org/incident. " email unsubscribe audit & marketing practices" - for the 3rd year ota completed an audit of the email unsubscribe practices of the top 200 online retailers. The report served to help identify trends and promote best practices and transparency while recognizing industry leaders who achieve top scores against benchmark standards. Https://otalliance.org/unsub. " internet of things working group (iotwg)" - the working group convened several multi-stakeholder meetings and briefings throughout the year. Https://otalliance.org/iot. In september, a study was released finding that 100% of recent iot vulnerabilities were preventable by following ota's iot framework. A key deliverable was the release of the v2.0 of the iot trust framework in january at the consumer electronics show and a follow up update v2.5 in june at the annual member meeting. Moving forward the goal is for the framework to become the foundation for a voluntary code of conduct and certification programs. Https://otalliance.org/iotindustry. " training, education & enablement" - ota continued to develop and delivers various cyber security and privacy training programs around the world involving but not limited to email authentication, advertising supply chain security and data breach readiness. In addition, ota offers numerous webinars open to the public with the goal to accelerate the deployment of online trust best practices. In this past year, ota delivered in person training to nearly 1,000 attendees and reached an additional 100,000 via online downloads and web visits. Https://www.youtube.com/user/otalliance " community outreach" - data privacy day (dpd) is an international event held every january to raise awareness and promote data privacy educ

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
• Program expense ratio: 85.5%; rating input score 85
• Fundraising efficiency: $24.46 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 67; 67th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 62nd percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: 3 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 50
  • Compensation committee: Pass
  • Independent consultant: Missing
  • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
  • Written employment contract: Pass
  • Compensation survey or study: Missing
  • Board or committee approval: Pass
• Foreign activity oversight: Limited
• Grant itemization coverage: 100%; rating input score 100; 74th percentile among comparable filings
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
• Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

• Independent voting board: 75%; rating input score 75; 14th percentile among comparable filings
• Governance controls: 5 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 62
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Fail
  • Document-retention policy: Pass
  • CEO compensation review process: Pass
  • Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Missing
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

• Operating margin: -79.8%; rating input score 1; 1st percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 0; rating input score 0; 0th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: Limited
• Officer compensation ratio: 31.6%; rating input score 5; 5th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 28.2% per year; rating input score 100; 90th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 4.1% per year; rating input score 100; 50th percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: -8.9% per year; rating input score 0; 9th percentile among comparable filings