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Does A Company Deserve the Same Privacy Rights As You?

Posted by samzenpus on from the won't-somebody-please-think-of-the-business dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an important case to determine whether or not AT&T deserves 'personal privacy' rights. The company claimed that the FCC should not be allowed to distribute (under a Freedom of Information Act request) data it had collected concerning possible fraud and overbilling related to the e-rate program. The FCC argued that the information should be made public and that companies had no individual right to 'personal privacy,' the way individuals do. As it stands right now, the appeals court found that companies like AT&T do deserve personal privacy rights, and now the Supreme Court will take up that question as well. Given the results of earlier 'corporation rights' cases, such as Citizens United, at some point you wonder if the Supreme Court will also give companies the right to vote directly."

4 of 379 comments (clear)

  1. Since when are rights deserved? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Rights exist or don't exist. Once you start to use the term "Do X deserve the right to Y?" you have already lost.

  2. Re:Yes by nine-times · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I say even then, no. The reason we protect the privacy of individuals is because we recognize a need for human dignity, and that people have a right to private lives outside of the public sphere. Businesses, however, are public entities. They don't have "private lives". They don't go home to wives and children at the end of the day.

  3. Public by Anomalyx · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Take any random citizen - let's just say me, for example. Since AT&T is a publicly traded corporation, I can, at will, by shares in the ownership of AT&T. Since I have partial ownership, I should be able to see whatever non-confidential information of theirs that I want (by confidential, I mean stuff like credit card numbers, anything under a client-lawyer protection, etc.). Since anybody at all can buy shares, I'd say it would be far easier to make the publicly-traded company's information publicly available. At MINIMUM, the shareholders should get it. They own the corporation, after all.

    --
    No, there is no "-1 I'LL NEVER ADMIT BEING WRONG!!!" mod.
  4. Corporations aren't people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Recently on August 23rd this year, UNITED STATES v. HAVELOCK concluded that mailing threatening communications in violation of 18 U.S.C. 876(c), which makes it a felony to mail a communication addressed to any other person, does not apply to companies and corporations like news organizations. So since they are not persons, they should not be bound by personal privacy laws.