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The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) of 1999, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, did away with many of the restrictions placed on financial institutions. One major focus of the act was the protection of personal information of consumers. The act required a clear disclosure of a company's privacy policy regarding sharing customer information with affiliates and third parties. Implicit in the act was the idea that privacy policies would be in plain language. This research sought to determine the readability of privacy policies of banks, check cashing companies, and credit counseling companies. Privacy policies of the three business types were obtained from web sites and analyzed using Microsoft Word 2007, which employs the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level test. Findings revealed that most privacy policies were written above grade level 12, which would portend problems for a large segment of the population, particularly those that patronize check cashing companies. Customers of banks and credit counseling companies might experience similar issues, albeit to a lesser degree., INTRODUCTION In 1999 the U.S. Congress enacted the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act. GLBA repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, which greatly restricted the financial [...]