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Canadian Privacy Law v. E-Mail Harvesting
sbowles writes "Canada's Privacy Commisioner has ruled that a business e-mail address is personal information protected under the federal privacy legislation (PIPEDA). Law professor Michael Geist (a leading e-commerce and privacy law expert) received an unsolicited request to buy seasons tickets from the local football team. His e-mail address had been harvested from a University website. The ruling indicated that 'You are allowed to collect and use publicly available information, but the use has to be directly related to the purpose for which the information appears in a directory or notice.'"
I guess that also explains the general American lack of manners...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No, it's to have pertinent sent to. My email address appears above this post -- if you want to discuss it with me, fine, if you want to attempt to sell me V1AGRA, then kindly ...
Doesn't personal discretion play a role in personal privacy? If you broadcast contact information on a public channel (website/phonebook), I can't see how you can rightfully expect discrete control over how it's used.
Absent a predetermined agreement on explicit terms of use, do you not hand over control of information to when you provide it to a given audience? If you choose "the public" as your audience, I'm finding a privacy claim is difficult to understand.
If you want others to handle your personal information with discretion, should you not handle it with similar discretion?
I hate SPAM as much as anyone, but I don't see how publicly published information could ever be considered private.