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"Online Privacy Alliance" Claims Privacy Too Expensive
Non-Newtonian Fluid writes: "An industry group headed by the usual suspects (Microsoft, AOL, Sun, AT&T, etc), just released four industry-funded studies that claim privacy is just too darn expensive, so why bother? They seem to want to kill any privacy legislation before it can get off the ground. Interestingly enough (though not surprising), they also seem to be working with the Direct Marketing Association on this." Scott McNealy, working hard to make sure we get over it. I should probably also mention that since the new health privacy regulations have been delayed (possibly indefinitely), the USA is firmly committed to remaining the industrial nation with the least privacy protection.
Where personal encryption is illegal?
-no broken link
I wonder what would happen if we started telling these CEO's details about their medical history, or their web visits, how long they would resist privacy legislation....
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
"..the group Monday went public with four industry-funded studies asserting that privacy legislation would cost consumers billions of dollars annually." and have "undertaken a campaign to nip Internet-privacy legislation in the bud"
So, let me get this straight. A big group of companies is saying that the reason they don't want privacy regulations, is that it would hurt the consumers?? Excuse me while I cough up a lung.
When was the last time that these companies stood for consumer's rights? Let's not forget that AT&T currently has a 40% stake in the cable TV market, and I'm sure would love to grab as much info about consumers from Digital TV as possible.
feh
People moan about morality being outdated, and then they run into something like this, an utter disrespect for the rights of others.
There is not that much distance between this and outright thievery, looting, and pillaging, and plundering. All it takes is a little less respect for others. That's all.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Keep it up, y'all.
OK,
- B
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http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
Privacy is a thing of the past. Everybody can freely find out all details about everybody else - past relationships, earnings, educational achievements, you name it it is just a short search away. The most amazing thing of all is that the people of this time like this state of affairs.
Imagine, the honesty in society. You can check up on prospective dates. Crime is incredibally low in this environment.
Society has become transparent. 'Privacy' is regarded as an outdated and rather curious concept, and everyone is of the opinion that the lack of privacy is a good thing for society as a whole - it engenders honesty.
Is this the future? I think it may well be. I can see that attitudes like this are becoming more and more common - my teenage neice already searches google for information on people she knows.
There is a case for saying that the lack of privacy leads to a transparent and crime free society, but there is a problem - corporations.
I think that the lack of privacy could well be abused by powerful corporations, this is the bugbear we must avoid.
I think that the EU is showing the way forward here, by standing against Corporations where America will not.
I must admit I am scared by the possibilities of this future, but I think it will happen.
--
Except of course, if something on the internet is happening, which prevents it from turning into how we see it.
Namely those terrorists, who want to keep us from turning the Internet into a huge Cable Television thingie and a gigantic technicolor shopping mall, generation Bazillions of $$$.
The studies published Monday conclude that proposals to limit companies from sharing or selling customer information without permission would cost 90 of the largest financial institutions $17 billion a year of added expenses, and would result in a $1 billion "information tax" on consumers through costs tacked onto products from catalogs and Internet retailers.
Yeah right, of course those companies have the right to waste my time, by spamming me by every available means and at my expense.
What's really worrysome is that given enough money, those jokers are actually able to turn this into a repectable organisation with near-official status. See the BSA.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Imagine, the honesty in society. You can check up on prospective dates. Crime is incredibally low in this environment.
That giant scream you just heard was the collective noise of every woman who's ever been stalked. If we could all suddenly get an unlimited amount of data on anyone we chose, Natalie Portman's every move would be stalked by thousands of drooling trolls. Do you see that as a good thing? A reduction in crime? Me, I don't.
What's your damage, Heather?
"Hospital consortium" claims cost of saving people is "too expensive", points at rising costs of treatment. Recommends against seeking medical advice for illnesses, advises killing oneself now to lower hospital expenditure.
Does my bum look big in this?
I don't know how privacy regulations are in the USA, but I do know we have privacy laws here in the Netherlands. If they actually *work* is a completely different story. Companies *must* give you insight in data they haven on you, but in reality it is almost impossible to track down what information the do have on you. I have tried this with a few companies: I was constantly being put on hold, talked with a lot of different people, and nobody knew anything. One company could tell me that they regularly bought personal data from 'another' company, but they couldn't which one. So you can have all the laws and regulations thath you want, but what companies do with your information is quite something else!
That was the general idea behind free ISPs, actually, and your price was right on target. For the equivalent of $19.99 per month, you lost all privacy of internet surfing. The company knew where you went, what you bought, who you e-mailed, you name it. You weren't alone in being willing to sell out.
Me, I was holding out for $40, the free DSL, but when it finally became available in my area, I'd wised up.
What's your damage, Heather?
Judge (skeptical, but interested in that video): Are these -really- relevent to the case? They seem very intrusive.
Lawyer: Your honor, privacy was deemed too expensive, by Congress, in 2001. I am merely trying to save this court an unnecessary financial burden.
Microsoft's Lawyer: Ummmm, when we said "too expensive", we did not mean "too expensive". We were misquoted.
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)
...for THEM.
Consider: Corporations now make money using data that belongs to you (phone number, ssn, number of children, etc). They either make this money directly (by selling it to advertisers) or indirectly (by using it themselves in "targetted advertising", etc). Privacy laws stop them from making this money.
But it gets worse than that: Really STRICT privacy laws actually COST them money. They'd have to have compliance officers, regulatory reports, privacy consultants, policy creators/enforcers, etc.
Imagine YOU were a company that was making, say, $1,000,000/year on private information. Then a law is passed and you are looking at paying OUT $100,000/year instead. You'd be pretty pissed, wouldn't you?
NOTE I'm not saying that we should just bend over and let the corps give us the shaft, however. I'm just saying that anyone who didn't see this coming must have fallen off the turnip truck recently. The only antidote to lobbying is MORE lobbying. Call or write you congresscritters and tell them how YOU (not your cable or phone company) feel about privacy. It would probably also help to call the companies in question, but that should be a second step, not a first one.
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324006
Society has become transparent. 'Privacy' is regarded as an outdated and rather curious concept, and everyone is of the opinion that the lack of privacy is a good thing for society as a whole - it engenders honesty.
This might not be such a bad thing, if everyone were on an equal footing. But that is unlikely. Some people will benefit from this tremendously and others only indirectly if at all.
Also, a shift to a transparent society is one that people will simply not be able to opt out of.
The end of privacy will be a non-voluntary transaction which benefits one side only. That could be a reasonable definition of the word "robbery".
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
- Lie on the application. This worked nicely when I needed a Kroger card (Blacksburg Kroger, for those who are curious), and the sales-droid was none the wiser. If you choose to use this technique, I'd recommend writing an at-least-plausible address. And, of course, be sure to check the "don't mail me" checkbox, as returned mail would be a dead giveaway
;).
- Don't shop there. This seems to be the Most Pure solution, from a cypherpunk point of view. Then again, it could be expensive, if it means missing out on sales. Pleasantly, there's at least one grocer near me (Shopper's Food Warehouse) that doesn't yet require a grocery card to get the sale prices.
- Trade cards / make fake cards. I read a webpage about some cypherpunks creating their own barcodes (?), but dammit if I can't find the link at the moment. I also read on that page that apparently cypherpunks regularly trade supermarket cards at their meetings. This approach seems to have the dual benefits of both get-the-sales-prices and mess-with-the-supermarkets. Unfortunately, it seems to be the case that there aren't any cypherpunk meetings near me (DC metro area), AFAIK.
So, any ideas?Alex Bischoff
---
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
"There is a real fear that some politician riding his horse is going to say, 'I'm going to tell my constituents that I'm protecting their privacy,' " said Michael Turner of the Information Services Executive Council
:)
Imagine that. A politician trying to protect his constituents....
Wait, this can be done better.
Senator's sysadmin: "We get signal!"
Senator: "Main screen turn on."
Lobbyist: "How are you gentlemen...all your privacy are belong to us!"
Lobbyist: "You have no time to ride your horse. Make your time."
Senator: "What you say!!"
Now, that's more like it.
w/m
I submitted this article to Slashdot. This sort of plays right into that topic. View your privacy as an asset of yours, one that can be sold or bartered. In other words, if you want to buy something without having your privacy violated (e.g. the store keeping an entry for you in their records) be prepared to pay extra.
What I am essentially saying is that you can view receiving spam from Amazon with their recommendations, and having them know what you buy, is part of the price that you paid for that book (or CD, etc.). If Amazon isn't willing to accept this deal, then I'm sure that some other e-tailer will.
For instance, you can use NetZero et al. You're paying for internet access, but instead of paying in cash, you're paying in privacy. Whereas, should you go to a regular ISP, you pay more cash, but less privacy (a good ISP only logs stuff that's directly related to QoS; limiting the number of ICMP packets that can be sent from one account to, say 1 per 20 seconds, or so is a good idea, imho).
Anybody can have as much privacy as he/she is willing to shell out for. You can buy things on-line, it's cheaper but you give out your information, such as your name, address, credit card numbers etc. You can buy things in a usual store, it'll probably be more expensive, don't use credit card, only use cash, don't feel in any customer service cards, don't bother with warranty and at least you will have more and better control of your financial information, your name and address info. Buy yourself a power generator and your energy company will not know anything about you. Dig your own well, you won't have to be worried about your water supplier selling your personal info. Don't use banks, whatsoever and don't have any credit cards, don't buy a cell phone, don't use a computer that is connected to any network (only use anonymous connections from libraries.) Only work for cash and never ever file tax returns. Never buy any property, only rent space for cash (then you don't have to bother with the electric line and your water supplier.) Keep all your information with you at all times. Do not own a vehicle or a driver's license.
Then you are really entitled to talk about privacy, but you wouldn't want to, because it will disclose the important information about your current location and your name.
You can't handle the truth.
I knew this dude from Metropolis
Who's mightier than all of us
The villains they hate him,
The media chase him
And that's why he stays anonymous!
This utopian "lack of privacy" does not "engender honesty" any more than the conditioning of Alex in Anthony Burgess's Clockwork Orange engendered in him lawfulness, kindness or respect for his fellow man. The same way The Brave New World engendered contentment in Bernard Marx.
I don't even think your scenario is that accurate. Not without some Huxleyan conditioning.
Any sociologist will tell you that privacy is a basic human need. Haven't you ever wanted to "just get away from it all"??
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
Speculating that "transparancy" will reduce crime is like positing that communism should reduce theft. It is incredibly nieve. Looking at communism from an "academic" or theoretical standpoint, it would be easy to say that since everyone shares in the product of each other's labor and resources are allocated according to need, there would be no need to steal, so theft would be non-existant. It didn't work out quite that way in the real world though did it?
Transparency would only work in theoretical ideal world where everyone's inforamation was available equally and powerful elites could not choose to share or not share at their desire. Not very likely in the real world.
The real problem (at least in the corporate eye) is that they can't MAKE money on privacy. Think about all the demographics they can sell by collecting your information. Actually storing all of that into a database costs money, be in in hard drive space, computer power, or electricity. If it wasn't collected, stored, and processed, they wouldn't spend a dime.
But a corporate funded "study" is like a comercial saying "eggs are good for you" being paid for by the Egg Farmers of America or a "study" paid by M$ stating that "yup. windows is the best." Really.
Now LACK of privacy costs a lot. It costs the victims everything. And the next time someone gets turned down for a job because they smoked a joint 14 years ago or because their brother's wife's cousin was arrested for writing a computer virus, then maybe people will start to realize privacy isn't just about hiding crime, its about protect ourselves being victimized.
Hrmm...
If these companies (AOL, Microsoft, Sun, etc)are so concerned about not keeping things "under wraps" or "private" if you will, then why don't they open up all of the source code of all of their major software for everyone to see?
Surely, this would be an excellent gesture of their faith in the idea that Privacy (and keeping secrets) hurts consumers.
;)
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Personal privacy is the responsibility of the individual, it's that simple. There's no universal rule that gives people the right to privacy, although it's something we obviously aspire to have.
In essence, privacy should, or perhaps has, beceome a technology. It should be treated like one. This, however is difficult because companies and organizations have been given (undue) priveledges that interefere with the ability of people to choose the privacy that they want. Also, regulations and concerns of "national security" have added to the availabilty of privacy.
Sometimes it's in the form of monopolies, or centralized government systems (like hospitals, and even citizenship.)
Clearly, though, membership in society generally involves some compromise of privacy.
So, perfect privacy is unattainable, but that which we do have is truely up to ourselves to maintain.
Steve
[ approaching AI ]
Earth, by David Brin, imagines exactly this future. Lots of people carry video cameras which stream live to the web. People who want privacy are regarded as strange, and possibly dangerous. Switzerland has gotten nuked for refusing to reveal the account information of its bank customers. Lots of other stuff in there as well. Good book.
Best Slashdot Co
from not too long ago. PHB's complained that security is too costly to invest the time and money in because it doesnt realize a tangible return. It wasnt until everyone got hacked that they realized how backwards their thinking was. Once the Thought Police come a knockin people will realize what they lost.
/. readership certainly isnt, realize just what their privacy really means. Until then "The Big Four" are rightly trying to debunk user privacy. Why should they put forth the effort if no one perceptively cares?
It wont be until a majority of people, of which the
"Me Ted"
BOSTON SUCKS!
I think a nice idea would be a anonymous way to buy stuff online. But the reason govt and businesses don't like anonymous people running around is because of the few that abuse that system. The swiss banking system is great, but when you have the Russian Mafia holding their money in it, then you need to change some regulations. The person on Ebay who gets ripped off isn't going to be happy with privacy and anonymous sellers.
Plus, by combining all the info available on the web from different companies you can have exact demographics and know the markets needs and wants. I run a website that has a mailing list which I am sure someone would love to buy. Speaking of that, what Linux/Computer/Geek type site (Hmmm...let me THINK of a GEEK site) wouldn't love to get the mailing list from /.? They know the demographics of the site, they know we like to keep our bawls cool. I see dollars signs already!
The more electronic the world gets, the more personal information will be available to anyone with some cash. It's sad, I don't like it, but that's the way it is. Just remember though, the govt and businesses are there for YOU. If you don't like it, post your comment on the door of City Hall, not just here.
=-=-=-=-=
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Oh bother.
Unfortunately, I agree that we're moving towards a world of transparent information on the wage-slave class. But the information will most assuredly not be transparent for those with power, money, or criminal intent.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
How can it cost ME money in form of a "consumer tax" to keep a company on the internet from collecting private information? It just doesn't stand up to reason. I think the only way this "consumer tax" would exist is if they actually started trying to lock down their servers from outside break-ins and keep some 7337 5cR1p7 k11613 from taking my CC number when I purchase from a company stupid enough not to apply security fixes on a regular basis. If that is they case, I'll gladly pay my "consumer tax"...
Burn Hollywood Burn
As a simple example, a friend of mine once wrote a program that would alert him whenever someone fingered his account.
Then there's the Webcrawler search voyeur, which lets you see all search requests made to Webcrawler. In this hypothetical future, it is conceivable that any search engine would be required to provide such an interface, and people could set up programs to monitor these streams for their own names, for example.
Remember that wonderful movie with Peter Sellers, Being There ? (here, too).
Here is a guy with the ultimate privacy: absolutely NO RECORD AT ALL, and when the President of the United States asks the FBI to do a background check on him, and when they come back totally empty-handed, the big-shots really start to shit in their pants, and some even think of having him run for president (I guess that's a prophecy of Ronald Reagan)...
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So let me see here:
The Napster lawsuit says that I have no right to share corporate data personally across the internet.
This group is saying that I have no right to stop corporations from sharing my personal data across the internet.
I'll make them a deal, drop the Napster lawsuit, repeal the DMCA, and they can do what they want. Fair?
- Twid
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
They will when it is impossible to prevent. When nano-bugs become available, how likely is it they will be outlawed? When outlawed, how likely is it that the rich and powerful will use them anyways?
Your argument is essentially the position that we should prevent private citizens the use of survelance technology, while trusting the government to be responsible with it.
Yea... I thought you'd see it my way.
--
Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom
What value does the Alliance gives to it?
Well we see that:
"The money spent to produce the four studies underscores the importance the industry attaches to the issue. Turner said his study, which examined catalog sales, cost $50,000. Another was funded with a $10,000 grant from the World Bank. The two other studies, funded by Ernst & Young LLP and the Tower Group consulting firm, each cost more than $50,000, but the firms declined to say exactly how much they spent."
That is what they spend to save US$17 billion of expenses and a US$1 billion of a foggy "information tax"... Well US$18 billion that they save us from paying (anyway the consumer pays all)
It looks great...
But they claim that 17 billion will be saved by tacking your privacy. Besides the save is made thanks to the fact that someone sells and another buys such information. So there will be people getting some profit from it... Well, under such a figure, profit will be by the hundreds of millions. May be a billion, what is an interesting coincidence with that "information tax"... Well corps don't like to loose money. Not even that one they expect to get...
Now, let's go back to the citation. They paid nearly US$160,000 for these studies. DAMN! Nearly 0,02% of the profit they may be waiting to get. THAT'S A GOLD POT STUDY!!..
Corporations in the United States enjoy plenty of freedoms. One being the ability to collect and own information about you. They oppose laws that would aim to curb this?! No kidding!
With Dubya in the White House, you can bet that their concerns will be more important than all of what you whiney pro-privacy anarchists have to say.
Realistically, true privacy is a matter of personal devotion/paranoia. You can whine and bitch all you want about insecure tieclip.com is with your credit card, but most people don't think twice when they hand their credit card to a waiter and he leaves the room to charge it.
There are very few people, some you might consider insane, who will drastically inconveniance themselves in the name of privacy. Scott McNealy's ranting isn't all that unfounded.
Meanwhile, the HMO's consortium is claiming that leaving you outside at night on US soil (like Alaska in January,) would be more effective if they could get the federal guvmint to pay for freight.
Dubya decides that the death tax could be used to pay for shipping if he can't makes states pay.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Let's see... In the last few months we've, so far, heard:
Let's add a couple more. You know they're coming:
It boggles the mind that an entity that exists only on paper and by the permission of the government (You remember the government, don't you? That little thing ``By and Of The People''?) has more rights than ordinary citizens. How long before there is a major backlash by the public against the perks handed out to corporations by local, state, and the federal governments? I'm guessing not too long.
--
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
If the bugs are made illegal, AND diseminating any information from them is made illegal, then yes, I imagine it would stop it. Or at least, would stop people from distributing the data on the internet so that everyone could have it.
But big companies would continue to flout the law, paying a fine or two here and there.
It's like credit reporting agencies. If a private person wrote that it was a fact that I had done 'X, Y, and Z' which proved I was a bad credit risk, I could sue them for damages if that wasn't true. CRAs though bought a few politicians and are protected with a law basically giving them immunity in these cases. As long as someone tells them it's true, they're not liable. Even if common sense would say it wasn't true. (They could report I incurred debt before I was born, if someone told them that.)
Must be nice to be the executive of a multi-billion dollar company and not be bound in any way by the law.
I haven't found a site that tries to deny anonymous access yet that I haven't been able to access anonymously one way or another. And I have yet to come across anyone attempting to block freedom.net, though I'm sure someone has.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
So, if you're a celebrity, even a minor one, you're screwed. There's no way you could monitor all those people checking you out.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer