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Wrangling Over Proposed Privacy Laws Continues

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the arm-twisting dept.

zurab writes "USA Today reports several U.S. lawmakers introduced a long-awaited privacy bill Wednesday that would allow U.S. businesses to share information about customers who have not explicitly forbidden them to do so. And one of the supporters of this bill - the beloved Mr. Boucher."

3 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. The Joy of Opt-out... by Nogami_Saeko · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because they know NOBODY in their right mind would EVER opt-in to something like this, so they have to open the door to big business somehow.

    I mean, otherwise the aforementioned big business would stop paying them campaign contributions and such...

    --
    "Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
  2. Privacy and personal information... by crc32 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    should be property rights held by individuals. This allows a more perfect market, because the information would be more closely protected than this bill provides. As Larry Lessig explains in his book Code, Privacy as a property right allows those who don't care about privacy to get what they want, while those who have considerable concerns to seriously protect themselves. Any other scheme will deny the fact that privacy concerns differ between different segments of society.

    --
    "In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." -- Carl Sagan, Cosmos
  3. No right to sue by EReidJ · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Consumers would have no right to sue if their privacy was violated. Enforcement would be left in the hands of the Federal Trade Commission, which usually does not impose fines on a first offense.

    This is the part of the bill that I find particularly noxious and annoying. I can (with regret) swallow the rest of the bill, as long as the company gives me the explicit choice, whenever they collect the information, about whether I want to prevent them from selling the information to other people.

    But this... When a company breaks the law, and they violate my privacy, I have a right to sue their asses off! I have a right (a moral right, not a legal one, IANAL) to publicly punish them and make damn sure they never do this again and get appropriate compensation for violating my privacy. This bill specifically would take away this right from me.

    "Oh, I'm sorry, we didn't realize we were violating your privacy! All those magazine companies now know your income level? Whoops, our bad! But we're just going to do it again, because we have no incentive to obey the law!"

    Laws don't mean anything without teeth. Remove the teeth, might as well not even have the law.

    --
    modern choral music...