Slashdot Mirror
Amazon 1-Click Lawyers Make USPTO Work Xmas Eve
theodp writes "In a move that would do pre-makeover Ebenezer proud, Amazon.com's 1-Click lawyers put the USPTO to work on Christmas Eve. On Dec. 24th, the USPTO acknowledged receipt of yet another round of paperwork submitted by Amazon's high-priced legal muscle, the latest salvo in Amazon's 3-year battle to fend off a patent reexamination triggered by the do-it-yourself legal effort of actor Peter Calveley. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click patent is also under attack on another front — on Dec. 23rd, the USPTO received $810 from Amazon's attorneys together with a request that the agency invalidate Patent Examiner Mark A. Fadok's final rejection of 1-Click patent claims on the grounds of obviousness. On the bright side, patent clerks — unlike Bob Cratchit — get the day after Christmas off!"
There are certainly risks involved with letting people store your credit card number, but I don't think the government needs to babysit us quite that much. That said, there are some similar measures I would support:
1. Minimum standards for the secure storage of those numbers. The most obvious requirement, if one doesn't yet exist, being that they can't be stored clear-text. There should probably be requirements about where it can be stored (eg, not on laptops), who can access them, etc as well.
2. A law requiring that the storage of your CC number be optional, and even default off. Too many services simply don't let you tell them not to store the number if you want to use that service, and even those that do tend to store it until you remove it. I don't think the government should be making our decisions for us--it certainly is more convenient to check out if the number is stored--but they should do what they can to let us make those decisions for ourselves if we believe the rewards outweigh the risks.
...and probably more, though that's what comes immediately to mind.