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The Tightening Net: Part Two
The United States (with the help of some European Enlightenment radicals) invented the legal notion of individual, constitutionally- protected privacy, even if contemporary American citizens seem content to surrender it to government and corporations. The modern-day United States has few mechanisms for protecting privacy when it comes to personal data.
Some European countries give citizens legal control over their personal data, and forbid the transmission of personal information from one source to another without the individual's permission. They also have government agencies responsible for monitoring violations; citizens can turn to them for help. And even in most European countries, citizens surrender confidentiality when buying homes or cars or applying for bank loans. Generally, they can rest assured that the information they surrender won't be sold or passed along without their approval.
Canada, which has a privacy commissioner, has recently enacted a bill requiring companies to ask permission before collecting personal data; it also requires that they tell clients why they need it and who will see it (most Americans happily turn over their phone numbers to clerks at chains like Radio Shack and Toys 'R Us when they make purchases). But it's almost inconceivable that similiar legislation or a privacy commissioner could get past the thousands of corporate lobbyists encamped in Washington. Corporations have become the primary contributors to national political campaigns. They have powerful lobbies in Washington, where individual consumers seem to have few, if any.
The list of reasons for collecting personal data keeps growing. Federal law requires some employers to notify the government of newly-hired employees so that governments can garnish the wages of people delinquent in their child support payments. The government also screens for terrorists, tax cheats and illegal immigrants. Corporations use software programs to screen for anti-social or other "problem" behavior, and check employees against vast databases of crime and debt. Schools are deploying software programs to look for potentially violent students. Some states require that anyone who works near children go through computer and database checks for criminal histories, particularly sex offenses. In an increasingly phobic and fearful culture, it seems that privacy is sacrificed everytime a law enforcement or other perceived threat is raised.
Privacy problems are the underside of the information revolution. As the Net makes the collection of information easier than ever, it also points out one of the principal ironies of technology: Advances are almost always a double-edged sword. Software collection programs present society with access to information, advanced research and marketing techniques, but also with complex new problems, few of them being addressed by government, politics, the tech industries themselves. People are at the mercy of credit-reporting companies who can dig up all kinds of information and, in effect, punish them without perspective or due process. Getting accurate information and redressing errors is like getting tech support: it's supposed to be possible, but just try it.
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once wrote of every American's right to an "inviolate personality," a zone of privacy around their intimate behavior and personal lives. That zone has vanished, in part due to harassment laws and other legal evolutions, but also, increasingly, because of software and mushrooming databases. Code has become a social instrument beyond the wildest dreams of many of its creators.
Banks and insurance companies have a right to see customers' credit and payment histories. But lesser infractions used to be forgotten, and individual bankers or agents had the power to make individual judgments. Computers now make information available to companies that wouldn't have had access to it, and software programs make decisions about reliability and risk. The entire process has become simultaneously impersonal.
Although there are some statutes of limitations on bankruptcies and debts -- after seven and, in some cases, ten years, according to federal law, bankruptcy can't be legally used against you and some debts must be forgiven -- there are no procedures for eradicating this information, or even for knowing how much companies are considering it. Personal data survives in databases for all time. And companies increasingly distance themselves from the source and repository if the information, the database collectors themselves. That makes accountability even harder.
Don't lenders, insurers, and colleges have some responsibility for making proportional judgments of their own, for studying the relative merits of each case and make individual decisions? Or will they blindly followed credit-tracking information, no matter the sometimes punitive impact on people?
In his book "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace," Harvard's Lawrence Lessig explains that the Fourth Amendment, which guarantees Americans the right to some measure of privacy, was conceived at a time when the prime technology for invading privacy was trespass. "Imagine then," writes Lessig," that in 1791 protecting against physical trespass protected 90% of personal privacy. The government could still stand on the street and listen through open windows, but the invasion presented by that threat was small, all things considered. For the most part, a regime that protected against trespass -- or unreasonable search and seizure -- was also protecting privacy."
When telephones appeared, this protection eroded. Private information was transmitted via phone lines. Rather than 90% of privacy being protected by the Fourth Amendment, only 50% was, estimates Lessig. Ever since, protections against privacy have not even remotely kept pace with technology. The boundaries around the reasonable information that banks, insurance companies, government and other institutions need to perform their legitimate business have been overrun. And corporations, not governments, have become the most wanton violators of privacy. One reason individual citizens feel apathetic is that they see little harm in Wal-Mart getting data about their shopping habits, or in Amazon selling lists of the books they like to other companies.
The public's fear seems to center on government, not corporate, intrusions of privacy, although polls show that fear of companies misuse of personal data is growing rapidly. But with corporations growing increasingly enmeshed with the political system, this may become an even more significant political issue, although it was never raised in the presidential campaign. History suggests that governments can change character -- Communism and witchcraft were crimes under some governments, not another. If the federal government should bow to corporate pressure and get serious about pursuing hackers and crackers online -- this doesn't seem a remote possibility -- people might regret looking the other way as their privacy is sold off bit by bit. Should today's citizens come into conflict with their government, there'll be no dearth of information about who and where they are, what they've read, bought, watched, and how they handled credit cards when they were 19.
Seemingly small transactions often have enormous implications for people's lives. The free flow of information is a noble notion, but it's becoming a frightening one as well.
I hate to tell you this, but in the US privacy is not constitutionally-protected. The closest thing we have is protection from unreasonable search and seizure, but this only applies to law enforcement and so isn't sufficient to really qualify.
It's one of the great shames of the United States in this day and age, but it's true.
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I set to (2) so hopefully much of the crud is screened out but I'm amazed that the discussion basically breaks down into:
(1) Ya can't fight city hall so don't try.
(2) Lie Lie Lie.
(3) No privacy is the price ya pay for keeping molesters off the street.
(4) Privacy is an overrated concept promoted by those socialist pussies in Europe.
And they call me cynical?
If you think laws guaranty your personal emotional completeness you are a delusional weenie. That doesn't mean we don't need to have some standards and guidelines.
How do you know you weren't turned down for a loan, not because of your credit risk but because of your medical history.
How do you know you weren't turned down for a job because of your video tape rental records.
The point is, children, that you need to establish some basic protections or expectations of privacy in order to claim that they exist at all. Or would you rather see an eBay marketplace with lists of all of the a.b.p.e newsgroups you fetish around in?
Have you been studying your history?
England's history is filled to the brim with revolts by powerful barons (see Magna Carta , Oliver Cromwell ) against weak kings who were consequently unable to see their power (and thus the power of the State) constantly eroded. The net result is that during the industrial revolution, when the bourgeois seized economic power, they frowned upon the power of the state to interfere with their profits. The british empire is filled with private corporations that had their own armies to enforce their own justice over conquered lands (like the East India Company, the Hudson's Bay Company - which still exists to this day); of course in no way that "justice" is geared towards the well-being of the people who lived there first - for example, the HBC forbade indians to trade furs amongst themselves (as they did for thousands of years), but instead, they had to SELL them (for trinkets) to the HBC, and, of course, indians had to buy it from them if they needed furs).
The net result is a mindset which sees all evil in whatever the State does, and turns a blind eye to the worst abuses by private citizens, a, perhaps, every private citizens aspires to be a Bill Gates.
With such a mindset, it's no suprising that citizens see nothing wrong in being screwed by private enterprise (after all, they might, one day, become big enough to screw smaller fry) but jump to the ceiling each time the government steps in to protect smaller people.
--
Canada's privacy commissioner is simply another position established so that the Liberal government has a job to grant to party supporters who no longer want to act as representatives. The position is a farce and carries absolutely no real duties or responsibilities.
It's something akin to the new $182,000/year "Ambassador to the Environment" position conjured up for a retired Liberal...
Just cuz you ain't paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you.
First of all, if your credit report looks like someone wiped their ass with it, ie, someone with five pages of past dues, overdraws, and collections, nine times outta ten you ain't gettin the loan. It's simple economics. You can stand on a soap box and say that it's private information, but when your talking money, it turns into another issue. Especially when it's not your money to start with.
I know we'd all like to forget those times when we forgot a credit card payment or we let a bill or two go astray. But that's not the banks fault. They're simply covering their ass, so to speak. You can't expect a lending institution anywhere to simply try to forget that you let your payments go to collections and your loans foreclose then say, "Well, we knew you had to buy groceries, so it's okay."
If you can't afford a loan, don't get one. It's as simple as that. If you can't afford a credit card, don't get one. Rinse, Wash, Repeat. It's not anyone's responsibility but yourself to keep track of your bills, and you can't just be forgiven for them overnight.
But there is a flipside. If you've shown improvement over the last long while--and I'm talking years here--then even five pages of bad credit could still get you a loan. But you have to be willing to pay off what you owe, or be making headway doing so.
Credit Bureaus weren't made so banks could nose in on your business. They were made because banks were tired of getting ripped off.
Of course, I don't have to add (but I will) that politics are everything and if you know the loan officer at your local bank then you're probably more likely to get the loan. I hate to put it that way, but it's true. Just ask the girls with the big breasts and how much trouble they have getting their car fixed.
Evan
misterorange.com
The Constitution is not a guarantee of anything. It is an agreement between a people and a government. The Federal Government agrees that it will only do a few carefully circumscribed activities (this is the theory anyway), and the people will not revolt against it.
That we've failed to enforce the Constitution is hardly the fault of our government. Governments have a certain nature -- to take away freedom. Woe until any citizenry that forgets that as ours has.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
America claims to be the "Land of the Free", but a greater percentage of its citizens are in prison than in any other democracy.
A lot of this is because people have recklessly assumed that they have the right to introduce mind-altering substances into their systems. Clearly, this is immoral and should be illegal, unless the substance in question has a billion-dollar Congressional lobby, in which case consumption of the substance is to be celebrated and encouraged. After all, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer is the American Way, and those who think differently should pack up and move to Havana. (Just don't try to bring back any of those cigars when you come back to visit.)
Since the elections, I've heard people (particularly Republicans) state that America is not a democracy, its a republic. Fine, but don't try to pretend the people have any say.
Four (and eight) years ago, when Bill Clinton won the electoral college and popular vote but failed to win 50% of the total vote because of the presence of Ross Perot, many of these same Republicans were saying the same things that Democratic partisans are saying now. "Woe is us! How can we live in a country where a man is elected president without even winning a simple majority of the votes?" Of course now that their man has tiptoed into the Oval Office without even getting a plurality of the popular vote, their tune has changed. (It's not about, the popular vote, don'tcha know.)
The reason is simple: partisan Republicans are ridiculous, damnable hypocrites. Of course, so are partisan Democrats. Anybody with a partisan agenda is a hypocrite, because your vocation requires you to put a favorable spin on anything that goes (or doesn't go) your way, regardless of things that have been said or done in the past.
What other civilized country still excecutes people?
No civilized country executes people.
(My guess is that it has something to do with religion, but thats just me...)
Capital punishment is compatible with Scripture. The electric chair is completely and wholly inerrant.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
My bad. Those whose views you espouse. (It's just that the only people who've phrased it the way you did have been direct marketers ;)
>social patterns and behaviour are irrevoricably changed by new technologies
Interestingly enough, I agree with you here - but come to the exact opposite conclusion, namely...
> I know more than a few marketers who's attitudes towards consumers are almost direct reactions against consumers' attitudes towards marketers.
>The point is, I'm no coperation-lover,
Don't mistake my loathing of certain marketing techniques with a loathing for corporations in general. I like corporations. I work for one and invest in several others, tech and non-tech alike. Profits are great. (Though I'm speaking for myself here - there are just as many slashdotters who loathe 'em)
> You sound like my counter-culture friends who would rather spend a good night out culture-busting than figure out an alternative for the corperations (who are too lazy and focused on their core business to pursue such alternatives); that is, a cheaper, better, more cost effective, easier way of advertising that doesn't piss everyone off.
In honesty, I think you and I are aiming for the same thing (less-intrusive and obnoxious advertising) here; we just have different strategies of getting there, because part of my goal also includes a privacy factor; it's none of your business what I read/watch/listen to, which is why I try to deny you that data.
When I enter bogus demographic data, my intent is to devalue that data pool. If I'm successful over the long term, companies will realize that direct marketing campaigns - ranging from telemarketing to junk mail to spam - generate poor returns on investment. And they will have to find better ways of generating sales. (Which is, ultimately, what I think you're after too, except that you place less value on privacy than I do, because you see privacy as a commodity to be traded away in exchange for less-intrusive ads, whereas I see it as an inalienable right, for which ad agencies have yet to offer me anything remotely near what I'd "charge" for it.)
[I'm going to continue to assume that] You're in the ad business - you know as well as I do that the cheapest and most effective method of advertising is word of mouth. Not slapping the word "viral" onto a glorified chain letter, but real people spreading the word that someone concentrated on their core business and developed a superior product than that of their competitors.
To pick an example of what I mean by "real" word-of-mouth vs. "let's generate some buzz" campaigns, six months from now, we'll have all forgotten about "Ginger". But we'll still be having the P4-vs-Athlon "bang-for-buck" debates because AMD, two years ago, bought some smart engineers and came to market with a product that provided lots of bang for very little buck. AMD got where they are today without a penny spent on guys in bunny suits or blue face paint.
If you wanna make an even more direct comparison - Coke vs. Pepsi. No "AMD is better because of technical reasons" here - but if you look at revenue growth, it's all about profit margins at the soda fountain, not the can in the store. KO can show as many CGI-rendered bears and happy teenagers sitting around campfires or howling at trains as it wants, but over the past few years, PEP's been getting the higher-margin and better market share by concentrating on the fountains in the theatres and restaurants.
Which is to say that word of mouth doesn't have to be at the consumer level, nor does it have to be based on technical superiority - it can be at the small business level, based on sound pricing strategies too.
> I do this as a matter of principal; keep seperate web-based email addresses, my "salary" ranges from 0-10,000 to 250-500,000 depending on my mood at any given time, my job title similarly varies, etc. etc.
/love/ to send you communication that aligns with your interest rather than showing commercials of the All American family (ie, the lowest-common-demographic denominator); but they can't (yet), because consumer targeting and profiling technology isn't there yet and people still don't believe that if a company can give you what YOU actually want, everyone is better off.
The thing is that much of this sort of behaviour is counter-productive to getting more accurate or personally applicable company->consumer communication. Companies actually (gasp) use this information to determine how to best initiate information, and what sort of information to give you. The thing I find mind-blowing is that people complain how companies never do things the way they want, but turn around and throw as many cogs into their consumer-profiling analytics as they can. Did you know that if a company could give you what you actually wanted, they could ease up on the geurilla or trick-the-consumer style tactics? Ask Coke or Microsoft! We dont like them because they can rarely afford to target their enormous consumer-bases with customer-granular communication. (Imagine if the fist time you heard of Microsoft, they offered to send you sports scores to your cell, or a free software package of your choice along with Win98, which you (or 98% of computer users) will get anyways.) They would
If something has never been said/seen/heard before, best stop to think about why that is.
"Old man yells at systemd"
> What about those of us who just don't want the "information" you "want to give" us
:) I work in an industry company; we don't advertise, much less track info. And, at any rate, you live in a capitalist country; if you think advertising isn't the foundation of capitalism, give my sympathies to your mail box for being misunderstood. You're getting information, whether you like it or not. The basis of my argument inherently assumes you'll never stop getting 'junk mail' (which I believe to be true). So, stop whining about it, and at least make the best of it. You're opinion is nothing but a tantrum.
Who said it was me?
Also, track records arn't applicable with respect to new consumer-behaviour-tracking technologies. One of the very foundations of technology, society and values studies states that social patterns and behaviour are irrevoricably changed by new technologies. That is, if you can only look backwards, you'll never be happy with the future. I know more than a few marketers who's attitudes towards consumers are almost direct reactions against consumers' attitudes towards marketers. There's no use arguing who started it now (never mind that these people are your family, your neighbours, and maybe even you, depending on your job and employer); we might as well just make amends and figure out a way of making things better for both 'sides'.
The point is, I'm no coperation-lover, nor do I work for one, endorse one, or play one in a movie, but you're a fool if you think they're going to magically go away if you whine and wave your arms around enough. I'm much rather figure out a way of sleeping with the enemy, and getting a good lay out of it. You sound like my counter-culture friends who would rather spend a good night out culture-busting than figure out an alternative for the corperations (who are too lazy and focused on their core business to pursue such alternatives); that is, a cheaper, better, more cost effective, easier way of advertising that doesn't piss everyone off. Including yours truely.
If something has never been said/seen/heard before, best stop to think about why that is.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Let's not mix rights. Just 'cause I've got the right to binge on bad foods, as in, no one ought to be able to stop me, doesn't mean it's right, as in, proper or good, to do so. It's risky business, mixing ethics and politics. In philosophy, it's difficult to call any answer right, as in, correct.
I have the right to walk on by a person in suffering. However, I also have a personal code of ethics. According to my code of ethics, it is wrong to exercise this right. This is called responsibility. Rights are enforcable. Responsibility is not.
But according to my ethics, it is also wrong of me to deny another of this right. I can't force other folks to be responsible. I can do my damnest to persuade them, but if they won't be persuaded, it's between them and whatever Higher Authority they may or may not believe in.
---
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
Until more people in the U.S. start to remember that the customer is in the driver's seat[1] and absolutely refuse to disclose data which isn't relevant, privacy is lost.
[1] Try it, it's fun. I love going into a store, paying cash, and have them ask for my phone number, social, etc. That you "have to have it for your records" is entirely your problem, not mine. You can leave it blank, make something up, or I'll buy somewhere else. "Oh, you need my social for insurance? But I didn't give you any insurance information, and besides, I paid cash already. You're not planning to defraud my insurance company, are you?"
Yep yep yep, spoken like a true Yank. Someone wanders onto your property, feel free to blow them away. Dang gov'mint raises taxes, head on down to the local IRS or Post office, and start blowin' those thievin' scum away ... {/sarcasm off} Of course, then the numerous members of the local police take you down. Which is why there are certain laws necessary: the imbalance of power between an individual and an organization can be staggering.
In the US, a citizen can still take the IRS to court to appeal a decision - admittedly, it's getting too costly for the average citizen to do, but at least the option is still there. You want to control your personal data? How the f$ck do you expect to get all the various companies - credit agencies, banks, credit card companies, marketing companies, to name a few - which store your personal date, to just delete it? Do you think your resources could make the slightest difference if you tried to sue, when compared to the gazillions of bucks they can spend to shut you up? Do you really want to spend weeks on the phone or writing letters to these companies, and, even if you do, are you sure you've got them all? Not to mention your letters/calls are going to be treated with the same degree of concern that they reserve for buzzing gnats ... squashed, and thrown in the trash.
The individual can still make an impact on their gov't representative. Which is far, far more than you're going to have on a corporation, unless you take the McVeigh route.
BTW, apologies to any non-English speaking Japanese seeking directions accidentally blown away by US citizens '...taking responsibility for their own protection by arming themselves ...'
Looks like 8 minutes.
Wow, you really held yourself back this time.
Good job of combatting the sterotype of gun-packing Americans. Do you still think that amendment has any bearing on your lives today? Do you still think any problem or issue can be solved by a gun? Interesting.
Here's to hoping you grow up as a nation one day. Your neighbours to the north would certainly appreciate it.
Katz says people don't care. He's right, but why don't they care? Do they misunderstand the risks? Is the scope of the theft too grand for the imagination? Have they been swimming too long in the stream of media images that reassure us that corporations are benign, friendly -- big brothers, sure, but never Big Brother?
For a brief period in the 60s and 70s, cultural assumptions about corporate power shifted merely enough to allow such impertinent questions to be asked in the mainstream media -- and for fledgling regulation to emerge in legislatures. Not only was such regulation inadequate to the job of preventing the eventual corporate state, but in areas ranging across environmental, labor, fiscal, and energy controls, we've seen it eviscerated since the 1980s.
Here we are twenty years on. Corporate power is ever ascendant, with politicians from both parties its handmaidens. In this era, how would we save privacy? How can we hope to do that when we can't even stop corporations from polluting? From laying off workforces and merging like mad DNA to boost stock values? From annointing its own as our political leaders? The loss of privacy is of a piece with these other losses: it, too, has been sacrificed for the golden virtue of business efficiency -- for the faster track to profit.
Privacy, as Brandeis recognized, is a bulwark against power. You cannot discuss privacy absent an equation which also measures the power that threatens it; or put another way, any bulletproof vest is pointless without taking into account what kind of bullets might be fired at it. The executives have the best guns. And the vest-makers all work for the executives. Bad time to dress for battle! What are we going to wear?
Only a handful of the 100 most popular online stores give shoppers adequate privacy, according to the EPIC ( it's a Washington-based privacy research group). The group's research focuses on whether sites use profile-based advertising and whether they use cookies in their site operations, both incredibly controversial practices on the Internet. The also focus on retailers' compliance with "Fair Information Practices''--those are basically guidelines that provide basic privacy protection for consumers--which *none* of the companies in the survey addressed properly, according to EPIC.
It's a shame that the US doesn't seem like's it'll follow other nations' lead in the privacy issue-- legally enforceable standards of privacy are necessary to ensure compliance with Fair Information Practices, and new techniques for anonymity are necessary to protect online privacy. The ECIP released a report last year on December 17th, that found that 18 of the leading shopping sites did not post a privacy policy, 35 of the sites have profile-based advertisers operating on their pages, and 87 of the e-commerce sites use cookies.
EPIC also reported that many privacy policies are "confusing, incomplete and inconsistent."
Doesn't surprise me. The stated policies of most big shopping sites run the gamut from bad to atrocious. People should have the right to buy without being tracked and without having their personal information sold
--M.
And this is my problem... how?
Sounds like a problem for wannabe-privacy-invaders. My heart bleeds.
What about those of us who just don't want the "information" you "want to give" us, because your track record has demonstrated, time and time again, that you'll abuse it.
We don't like you. We don't trust you. And we will not cooperate with you.
If you're an economic elite that comprises a small fraction of the population but needs to get a majority (well, except for this year, maybe!) of the vote to rule, then selling an idea like this to the humble folk is a pretty nifty thing to be able to do. The day the unwashed masses start demanding the same consideration from government that you do, well...
Some states require that anyone who works near children go through computer and database checks for criminal histories, particularly sex offenses.
I believe this is ABSOLUTELY necessary for all child care facilities. Do you really want some sex offender, particularly a pedophile, playing with your kids? These checks take a couple of days and are not a big deal.
However, I'm in one of those states that do require it and I know first hand that a lot of daycares do not run this check. Mostly because they are so understaffed that unless the candidate looks seedy, they will most likely be hired. I could go into an entirely off-topic rant on how day care staff need to be paid more if there is ever going to be GOOD day care out there. But I won't go into that.
Check out Althea for a stable IMAP email client for X. Now with SSL!
The REAL privacy issue has to do with false (and occasionally deliberately false) or misleading information being circulated as absolute fact.
(If it's on the computer, it -must- be true... ...mustn't it?)
Everything you do leaves a paper/electron trail. Sometimes this is a good thing. Sometimes, it can be so shockingly abused that it's amazing anyone's still living in the US.
Have you =EVER= had any kind of parking ticket? That might not be bouncing round the police database any more, but any unscrupulous department could sell that data, without you ever knowing. Suddenly, you stop being employable. No explanation is ever given. After a small fortune is spent, you discover that some popular vetting company has turned your long-forgotten parking ticket into a "Current Police Record" and a "History of Illegal Activities".
Then, there are those times that personal names get confused and the wrong database entry is updated. Your local supermarket's computer decides you're dead. Your mail gets halted. Your credit cards are cancelled. Your bank accounts are frozen. Your driving licence is void. All automatically. And fixing one DB is pointless, because any automatic update'll pick the error right back up again.
Want to find yourself homeless? Just irritate a friend of someone you want a line of credit from. "Denied Credit" does -NOT- look good on a credit check.
Or maybe you want to work for a high-tech company involved in banking, credit, stocks or computer security. You'd better hope that your neighbor's brother's daughter's friend has never shaken hands with a drug dealer. It'll get onto your record the moment anyone does a paranoid background check. And once you're listed as a "Known Associate" of a "Potential Criminal Family", how long do you think you'll last in any top job?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Medical data, address data, demographic data, habit data, all of that is just data. Rest assured that if things continue as they are, all of these will continue to be abused. Do you think your insurance company might find it interesting to add to their profile about you that you like to visit microbrewwry web sites? (Hmmm... liver problems in the future in X% of cases.) Or add to their statistical models that as an avid computer game player, you are X% more likely to have heart and obesity problems?
As advertisements get more focused, won't your grocery store want to know what you're allergic to, or if you're lactose intolerant? Hope you're not too embarressed about these things (as some people are!) because now your grocery clerk knows about it (when you handed them your Personalized Coupon for 15% off Soybean Milk.), and who know who that bored gossiping jerk might tell? Think Microsoft might want to know if you visit Slashdot a lot? Here comes the onslaught of "Why NT is Better Then Linux" ads! Think the Federal government might just decide that frequenting Slashdot is a sign of dangerous computer skill? (Why this might be bad is left as an exercize for the reader.)
Privacy concerns can be fruitfully divided into discussions about the exact way your privacy is being violated, but at the present time with the present policies, all privacy violations are important.
In a way, the "lesser" ones are more important to Slashdot frequenters, because it's obvious how insurance company privacy violations affect people, and a lot of people will stand against it. The more subtle, but nearly as powerful taken to its extreme (where it is busily being taken to while we sit complacent) privacy violations of watching what sites you visit, what you spend, how often you spend it, where you spend it is far more difficult to understand.
Consider... if I knew your surfing habits precisely, how much would I know about you? If I read everything you ever posted? Would I be able to guess with some level of statistical certainty (which is fine with insurance companies!) that you have some disease? Dangerous political views? Personality profile? (Bet you didn't think of that!) How would you like to be rejected for a job because your Anger Index was 32 too high... back in 1992?
Privacy concerns are not overrated; indeed, the more you understand about computers, the more you really look to see what's already going on, and the more you extrapolate into the near future (to say nothing about the far future), the more you realize that they are seriously underrated... mostly because they are difficult to understand easily. Regrettably, they are still very real.
PS: As for the idea that companies need detailed data about you to function efficiently, that's just plain bullsh*t. What they need is an efficient infrastructure, good lines of internal communication, good management, all the traditional stuff. Only marketers think they "need" detailed data about all of their hypothetical future customers. (Note nobody complains about data companies need to function... surely Amazon needs to know where to ship that book to... while this could be worked around it's not really worth the effort at this time.)
If you don't give your info out, people don't have it. If you don't specify that it be kept confidential, it won't be, nor should it be.
Much easier said than done. Some things can't be kept out of the public record- such as deed information- I've bought 2 houses, and I have no choice but to have that information available. I don't mind if the local public utility uses it to send me a letter informing me of something they have to do in the right-of-way. On the other hand, this same database is *SOLD* by the state (I'm in the USA) to direct mailers, Mortgage companies, and so on. My vehicle registration information has been sold. I've asked for them not to, but the lists go out immediately after the registration, but the "opt-out" takes up to 8 weeks, and I have to opt out of each individual VIN registered to me, I'm given no option to blanket-deny any requests under my name.
You don't have to give your information out, but life can be pretty hard if you don't. Depending on your state, you could: not hold a driver's license; not hold real property; not have a bank account; not have a credit card.
If you ever get a chance to use Lexis-Nexis, look up information on yourself. It is pretty scary what can be found. There *should* be controls on who and how they can access my private information, and the information kept on me should be available *to me* so that I can review it. Unless there are laws for this, none of the data-aggregation companies will be accountable for the information they gather.
One thing to keep in mind is that most Americans don't necessarily look at privacy issues in the same way as many posters on /. do. I was shocked to see my fiance actually take the time to send in the warranty card on a $40 blender she bought. Her thinking (i.e. "it may break and I may need to get it replaced") was obviously not the same as mine (i.e. "we are going to get even more junk mail than we already get."). I'm of the opinion, if you have a receipt and your blender's broken and it's worth more than the cost to ship the damn thing to Cuisinart, then you can get it fixed. If you don't have a receipt it doesn't matter if you sent in the warrantly card or not. Okay, so much for that rant.
The next thing I noticed, however, was that all the personal information was incorrect. Salary was different, personal interests were different, etc. etc.. Her name and address were correct (i.e. if we needed a replacement blender, we could get it), but all the marketing info was BS.
I do this as a matter of principal; keep seperate web-based email addresses, my "salary" ranges from 0-10,000 to 250-500,000 depending on my mood at any given time, my job title similarly varies, etc. etc.
In other words, businesses may be getting more and more info, but is any of it any good. And, what is the cost of seperating the good info from the bad?.
I'd like to add one more point, however, any information we are forced to give accurately (for a driver's liscense, bank loan, etc.) should be strictly protected.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
There's a lot of paranoia amongst the tech-savvy populace of the net, and yet there seems to be a consistent failure to grasp the fact that current concerns about privacy are unwarranted and overrated.
Why is privacy overrated? After all, we live in a consumer society where we demand value for money and quality service from the corporations that provide everything we need to live, and information is the lifeblood of these ideals. Without reliable information corporations aren't going to be as efficient, and in a free market economy such as ours, this harms us all in the long run, far more than the trivial loss of privacy that comes from a company knowing how often you read /.
There are real privacy concerns out there which we should instead be addressing instead of whining about how companies compile online demographics. For instance, the need for privacy for medical information is paramount, and yet sorely lacking in America. With the increasing use of genetic technology in medicine, we either need safeguards to prevent insurance companies from declining "high risk" people, or a socialised health care system in which we can be guaranteedt treatment no matter what.
But the issue of online privacy is only really of interest to people who spent too much time online, and too little time in the real world.