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Microsoft Calls for National Privacy Law
tabdelgawad writes "Brian Krebs, who writes the Washington Post's Security Fix Blog notes that Microsoft has just asked Congress to enact a new federal privacy law to preempt the growing hodge-podge of state laws that regulate how companies can use personal information. Go Microsoft!?"
Before your heads explode, you must say to yourself, Microsoft is only a company. Companies job is to make money, not to do good or evil, if doing good will help the company make or save money then they will do it. In this case for companies like Microsoft it is easier for them to follow one set of privacy laws except for 50 different laws and with the internet it makes it more convoluted.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Does that mean I have to commit ritual suicide now?
Anyone else think that Microsoft is trying to buy our love?
Technoli
Don't assume Microsoft is trying to enact a law that *protects* your privacy. Perhaps they just want privacy laws to be predictable w/o too much concern for whether they actually protect or not.
It will end up requiring MS-Privacy v1.0 for all taxpayers. No linux version available.
If Microsoft has the ear of the lawmakers, then they'll be in the best position to exploit the law.
Hey, this paranoia stuff is kinda fun!!
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
- Individuals have no rights to privacy.
- Corporations can do what they want with any data.
That is, they want enshrined in national law the most pernicious possible data standards. The fact that this is going down during the Bush administration may or may not play a part, but certainly, the idea that bad laws can be purchased isn't helping assuage any fears I have that such legislation is hopelessly one-sided.Dog is my co-pilot.
It's much cheaper to bribe your way around one law than it is fifty.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Heck, even better - maybe it's both!
The first step to ensuring that our privacy is protected is to make it federal law that all citizens have a Passport account...
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
I would assume this means said organizations would not be running Microsoft products...
Blog: http://richardrandomrants.blogspot.com/
One need only look at how the federal banking regulations are repeatedly used to crush California's much more stringent privacy requirements to see the real reason behind federalized "privacy" laws.
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"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
The purpose of calling for federal regulation is to keep costs down, not to protect privacy. Some companies are actually interested in protecting privacy because failure to do imposes costs. HP is particularly good in this regard in that it lets customers access their data. The companies you have to watch out for are the ones with business models that depend on selling personal information.
It is basically the same issue as with organic food. National standards mean that companies can lobby Congress to get the concessions they want. For organic foods, it can mean anything from allowing synthetics, factory dairy farms for "organic" milk or worse.
I think this quote captures the issue well:
If you think this is going to help people like you and I very much, you would be very optimistic.
I used to work in the wine/spirits business years ago and I can tell you from experience it is very difficult to build business outside your local regulatory agent. Now that was the intention all along. (Prohibition and all)
The Good: A Single set of rules makes it easier to sell to a bigger market.
Now, on the other hand, I have some experience in gov't sales and can tell you once the gov't adopts a some conventions, well, then the big players who were there all along defining the conventions pretty much soak up all of the business. They mostly own the business already, the new rules make it a sure thing.
The Bad: Generally eliminates variety and discourages innovation.
If MS is smart, they help write the laws and develop compliant code simultaneously. So MS gets a 6-12 month jump on the competition when there's little innovation left. Win-Win for MS.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Could this be Microsoft's motivation for the bill? Big companies like Microsoft can pay to get their products through a certification process, and thus used by companies who must comply with this act, but lots of OS software (some Linux distros and many apps) will not have the necessary resources to go from 'Release' level to 'Government Certified Release' level - leaving no option but for companies in the future to use the certified Microsoft WonderServer2009 over open source alternatives.
This is a preemptive strike against Google.
MS isn't in the business of knowing who you are or what you do. They want you to buy their software, not collect your personal data. It shows in their software. Activation is completely anonymous as is error reporting and authenticity checks. This is not true however, for Google.
They want to know who you are, what you do, what you click, buy, read and where you want to go. It's not going to stop there. Google wants information about every corner of the world. Thanks to a digital age, it is possible to gleen this information from our on-line habits.
MS is making a strike at google's efforts by putting tighter restrictions on how they can use, and possibly distribute your information in the future.
I mean, after all.. what does google do? Index information. Revenue is based off how they use that information, personal and public. Will this law(s) convienently be aimed towards creating requirements on how to protect such information that it will make it costly ($$ and time) enough to hurt google's business?
Sounds like the HIPPA expanded.
The road between democracy and tyranny is paved with secrecy in the name of security.
Microsoft is also going to write the EULA for the new federal privacy law.
Oh please, think about it before gushing over Microsoft. Microsoft only does things out of self interest. There are at least two Machiavellian motives for Microsoft to want a National privacy law. One is to undermine tougher state laws. MS knows that Congress is in the pocket of industry and will pass a weak national privacy law not a strict one. The other motive is to shoot Google in the foot. Google collects detailed personal information on every every Google transaction from a record of every Google search every made to the contents of your gmail in and out boxes. Privacy laws could hurt Google and anything that hurts Google helps Microsoft.
I'm no fan of Google's use of private info, but I never, never trust Microsoft.
Microsoft Privacy Assurance has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.
If you were in the middle of living, the identity you were counting on might be lost.
Please tell Microsoft about this problem.
We have created an error report that you can send to help us improve Our Lobbying Techniques. We will treat this report as an important path towards increased revenue and shareholder appeal.
[Debug]|[Sell soul]|[Smart people can click here and do neither unless they are x86 machine-code pros]You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Already a bunch of +4 and +5 Insightful posts bashing MS.
... While we have not reached consensus on all of the provisions of a privacy bill, we applaud Microsoft 's willingness to work actively with other high tech companies, consumer organizations and policymakers."
From TFA:
"CDT [Center for Democracy and Technology] President Jerry Berman praised Microsoft's move as "a landmark moment in the cause of establishing and protecting individual privacy rights online.
"Chris Hoofnagle, EPIC's senior counsel, agreed that Microsoft's position has softened significantly over the years. He noted that it was opposition from Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard that derailed an industry-friendly privacy bill from Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) that was quickly gathering support a few years ago
'Microsoft is being more assertive now and it shows that the company is maturing,' he said"
"ACLU legislative counsel Timothy Sparapani also praised Microsoft's move, but cautioned that any federal privacy law would need to include safeguards for data gathered by commercial data brokers."
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
Microsoft is an industry leader in terms of user privacy, internally every employee (for whom it is relevant) must undergo security/privacy training and sign statements about compliance with privacy standards (particularly in terms of how the company deals with PII, Personally Identifiable Information). Saying that the company wants a single privacy standard solely for the purpose of making money may be true in a few corner cases, but in general its not true because Microsoft already has to comply with international standards which (particularly in the EU) are much stricter than the standards of any US State. I think the biggest reason Microsoft would support standard privacy laws is because it would be easier for the company to make guarantees about third party partners (particularly those that use Passport) and make some baseline claims about the level of privacy partners must support.
A fair guess is that Microsoft has seen which way the wind is blowing and decided to put forward a proposition that's essentially on behalf of business before someone else puts forward a proposition that's a lot more tilted towards Joe Citizen or other business models.
A difficulty with any law of this kind is that essentially if it's going to have teeth then it's going to be anti-business, in the sense that business will always push for a greater invasion of privacy than legislators or citizens are going to feel comfortable with. It's rather hard to believe that a convicted monopoly is the best arbiter of this unavoidable clash of interests, though to be fair it's an issue that exists in every country in the Western world.
Of course, one can't help noticing that the requirements over "secondary" uses of information would be problematic for a company with a lot of alliances with third-parties and an interest in personal data, like erm Google, and less problematic for a company where more of it is kept in house, like erm MSN or Windows Live, and where the information is much less personal. And various hints that regulatory compliance might cost big bucks could knock out a lot of small guys. By amazing coincidence, a federal law would then knock out some perhaps tougher state laws, too.
Nope. The idea that a convicted monopoly should "help" politicians decide what's in my interest strikes me as gross. Even grosser, perhaps, is that the politicians should think it's a good idea to accept this generous offer.
Las qué passoun
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> 1. Individuals have no rights to privacy.
> 2. Corporations can do what they want with any data.
>
> That is, they want enshrined in national law the most pernicious possible data standards.
You must be new to K Street. Never miss an opportunity to enshrine a monopoly in legislation by finding a way to render your competitors' business practices, even where they're identical to your own, illegal - while simultaneously granting yourself the permission to do the same thing under color of law.
I've therefore amended your second rule as follows:
2. Corporations that have business models that conflict with that of Microsoft must be held to the most stringent privacy standards.
Although the Constitution is no longer relevant, it's still considered bad form to write a Bill of Attainder", so you have to be a little clever about it.
Thus, you'll typically end up with something like this:
Hmmm.... How can I spin this against MS to make it seem like they're doing something evil...
I am so sick of this nonsense. I swear, I need to stop clicking on any slashdot story with the name "Microsoft", "Google", or "Apple". Or maybe I should stop looking to slashdot thinking that maybe people could somehow look past their biases and read a story for what it is.
Yes, Microsoft is probably acting in their own best interest. So do Google and Apple. They're all trying to make money. That doesn't mean it won't benefit us. Don't try to tell me that you never act in your own self interest.
I know, Microsoft does anti-competitive things, and that's not cool, but don't let your opinion of them cloud your ability to think for yourself. We need to have our personal information protected, and here MS is in agreement with that. What's the big problem? Seriously!
My thought: Microsoft is trying to get Federal rules that they can live with and that'll override more restrictive state rules. Take a look at opt-in vs. opt-out in their proposal. They advocate opt-in for a very limited class of data that they know the general public's getting touchy about, and I'll bet they make that a headline point. But for all other classes of data, they want opt-out enshrined in law in a way that prevents any state from requiring opt-in across the board. And once this is nailed down in Federal law, it'll be all but impossible to get it changed later no matter what happens.
I think that's Microsoft's strategy: cave in on the few points the public's riled up about right now, while simultaneously nailing down favorable terms everywhere else.
This sort of statement applies to companies that aren't Microsoft, as well. The goal of a company is not philantropy, it is success (unless you are a not-for-profit company whose goal is philantropy, in which case, philantropy is success, but I digress)...
The same "company goal" that Microsoft has is shared by Google, Yahoo, Netscape, Intel, AMD...
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The company benefit from certain actions may just be as simple as 'branding' and positive public relations, but actions a company takes are almost never selfless.
I'm glad that at least SOMEONE here realizes that. (added: it's not just you, but you're the most recent example that I've seen):)
[Now if people would just realize this beyond Microsoft, I think we could all finally come to an understanding about the nature of business that I think the average Slashdotter isn't quite getting]
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
Microsoft's suggestions sound quite a lot like what we've already got in the UK thanks to the Data Protection Act.
This is yet another example, though admittedly it's better than a lot of what's already in existence.
Here in NZ, we've had a Privacy Act for 15 years, and it's stronger than this proposal. You have a right-to-access-and-correct information held by any organisation, even the Government, for example. Getting a credit card or a loan is not a licence for the bank to sell your name and address to a dozen different direct-advertising agencies. Buying something on HP will not require you to purchase a larger mailbox just to cope with the influx of targeted mail.
If you allow the corporations to define the rules of the game, you are fair game. I'd hate to live in a society where any company that has my details can sell them.
Oh, and to the people who say that this exceeds the authority of the federal government, surely this is an inter-state commerce matter? A uniform set of rules under which you may be fucked over by corporations sounds like inter-state commerce regulation to me.
"God, root, what is difference?" - Pitr, userfriendly
Too busy to grab the links just now, and the thread will be old and dead before I have time to do so, but several of my recent posts have been on this topic. You can search for them (assuming you have the time and interest).
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Yea, right.
Your Servant, B. Baggins
the little guys who make the country run, or the big shots who want to limit the little guys?
the answer to the question is the heart of the argument. I don't generally expect big multinational outfits to be pushing for little guys to get their rights back as it says in the constitution.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
The MS rep for the privacy law proposal was on C-span's Washington Journal (an excellent show i recommend all should watch)
The format of the show is that each guest gets a good 45 minute to an hour sit down interview, and takes calls for the entire 45 minutes.
I thought the MS rep had some good things to say. He said just about everything you would expect and it was pretty much on the ball.
Of course the entire time i tried to figure why MS is behind this because it's clear they're one of the biggest security problems on the internet.
The only thing i could come up with is that MS probably has software in developement that is near complete that they want to sell to all online retailers etc.
The MS rep's biggest point was that a person should beable to track their info, know where it is, who has it, what is being done with it, and when it shifts hands to outside agencies etc.
Which i'm guessing is exactly what they have in developement for a software solution. If MS could by law force all companies to use such software and provide such information to customers, then MS would have a sure sell to all buisnesses. And like i said, i bet MS has this peice of software all ready to go. All they need is a law to enforce the requirement of such applications and services.
The law is a good idea, but clearly i think MS is banking on this for a new source of revenue in the B2B world.
Hrm... Think of factory conditions in this way, if you would:
We should buy as much from possible from sweatshops to increase the wages of their workers.
Stop laughing >.<
Firstly, if we buy a lot from sweatshops, that would mean there would be massive $money to be made in sweatshoppery. Opportunistic taskmasters would open their own sweatshops, wanting their own peace of the pie. And, they'll want "workers," too. Eventually, the sweatshops will run out of workers to exploit, and would have to, gasp, pay them more in order to grab workers away from competitors. By putting a sufficiently large carrot in front of the taskmasters, their own greed will help the impoverished. Spooky, eh?
Also remember, that in countries that can barely feed themselves, their idea of a "living wage" is completely different.
Also, what would happened if we all stopped buying from sweatshops? They'd be shut down, of course, and yay, we liberated the poor, starving serfs earning diddly/squat per hour. Of course, that means that they're now making $0 per hour, because we just killed their one source of income and only chance of feeding their family, as feeble as was.
Although sweatshops are deplorable, they are the first babysteps towards a modern economy. We have to learn to balance humanitarian issues with economic ones. How would you rather spend your money? Would you rather a small portion of it drops into the pockets of the starving and impoverished or would you rather give a large chunk of it towards unskilled, over-privileged, unionized button-pressers?
DATABASE WOW WOW
It is not the federal government's role to be in charge of everything. Really. It's not.
Why isn't it the federal government's role to be in charge of everything? Because a top-heavy government with an all-encompassing federal overseer is called communism or socialism. We do not want that?
Why don't we want that? If you don't know then you need to go back through the social studies and history courses from 1-12th grades.
There were some very intelligent men who recognized that the absolute worst thing possible is to have a federal government which thinks that it is more sovereign than the collection of states beneath it. Those intelligent men wrote a Constitution, and in that Constitution they sealed it with 2 Amendments. Those Amendments are the 9th and the 10th, and they're supposed to be limiting the Federal Government.
Keep the hodge-podge of state laws about privacy. If you hand it over to the feds it will become a single point of failure and will cost 10x as much.
Likely Microsoft wants the Feds to preempt the whole system so they don't have so many state politicians to buy off.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.