Slashdot Mirror
Online Clearinghouse Offers To Defend Privacy
jfruhlinger writes "Privacy may have become a hot-button issue in the Internet age, but the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has been fighting against corporate privacy violations for 20 years now. Today, they've launched an online complaint center that will hopefully help keep your private data private. Fill out the online form and the PRC will follow up with the privacy compliance officer at the company in question, or investigate whether a complaint to a government agency is in order."
It would be hilarious if they were funded by selling your privacy report data for marketing purposes.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I'm not really sure that I would trust the PRC to keep my private information private, I mean the Chinese government isn't exactly known for respect of the individual.
I was going to file a complaint against every website on the internet that requires a "registration" in order to use the fucking thing and then I clicked on the online form link and decided against it.
When you collect information on people, it will be abused. Somehow, someday, somewhere ... some entity, usually corporate, will get a hold of it and use it to your detriment. The entire credit industry is a perfect example of this. And they spawned the corporate Big Brother, ChoicePoint, that our government uses to spy on Americans to get around that pesky Constitution and the "activist" judiciary.
Another example is the health insurance industry. Get prescribed an anti-depressant for any reason you become uninsurable. How do they know? Pharmacies share all that data about your prescriptions with the insurance companies, among others.
Goddamn them all.
Does anyone actually care about privacy any more? I do, but I also act to preserve mine.
As far as I can tell, 99.9% of the population does not care one whit. They'll cheerfully give all their private data to Facebook to sell to whoever wants it. They'll let google track their entire online presence and behavior through google analytics (or facebook through the "like" button). They'll load adverts and run javascripts from web pages that track them. They'll use supermarket tracking/discount cards. They won't encrypt their emails and IMs. They'll give all their personal data to a big telecom in exchange for a few hundred dollars/euros off a phone. They'll collectively push the internet away from its former open and anarchistic nature into proprietary, censorable for-profit communications like Twitter/FB, letting a few companies know everything about everybody. Sure, some few of ppls *claim* they value privacy, but you can tell what a person really thinks by their actions not their words. And the actions are clear: they are cheerfully willing to give up their privacy in exchange for a little convenience.
You use FB? You don't care about your privacy. You have a contract phone? You don't care about your privacy. You don't HAVE to have one, but you decided not to support the alternatives such as anonymous prepaid phones.
Almost nobody cares about privacy. That's the only conclusion one can make by watching their behaviors. And as long as almost nobody cares, the war to retain privacy can only be lost.
Holy shit, dude, are you dredging up stories from two Presidents ago? It is long past time for you to update your tropes. Next thing, you'll talk about how Duke Nukem Forever will never be released.