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Privacy: the 21st Century's Newest Luxury Item
chicksdaddy writes: There is a report today on the 21st century's newest luxury item: online privacy The Christian Science Monitor writes about the growing market for premium privacy protection tools available to tech-savvy consumers with the desire for online anonymity — and the means to pay for it.
The piece profiles new tools from companies like Abine that deliver everything from self-destructing e-mail messages to the 21st century's equivalent of Kleenex: one-off "throwaway" online identities to keep advertisers, merchants and government snoops at bay. Privacy experts, however, doubt that the new tools will tip the scales of online privacy in favor of consumers and away from governments and advertisers. "Consumers really don't have a fighting chance," says Andrea Matwyshyn of Princeton University. "Technology moves entirely too fast."
She and others see the need for both bigger fixes and the level of Internet infrastructure and law. "As a consumer protection matter, there needs to be a floor," she said. "Just as there are laws protecting renters from substandard housing, or car buyers from 'lemons,' there need to be regulations that create a buffer between consumers and companies."
The piece profiles new tools from companies like Abine that deliver everything from self-destructing e-mail messages to the 21st century's equivalent of Kleenex: one-off "throwaway" online identities to keep advertisers, merchants and government snoops at bay. Privacy experts, however, doubt that the new tools will tip the scales of online privacy in favor of consumers and away from governments and advertisers. "Consumers really don't have a fighting chance," says Andrea Matwyshyn of Princeton University. "Technology moves entirely too fast."
She and others see the need for both bigger fixes and the level of Internet infrastructure and law. "As a consumer protection matter, there needs to be a floor," she said. "Just as there are laws protecting renters from substandard housing, or car buyers from 'lemons,' there need to be regulations that create a buffer between consumers and companies."
As long as the government's privacy policies and legislation remain as badly broken as they are, what happens in the commercial sector isn't of much significance.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
People seem rather keen to rush towards a future where you pay - either in money or time or experience - for more freedom. Either freedom of privacy, or simply ability (like paying more to avoid internet content blocks).
Happily for most here we have both the technical ability and the funds needed to have "real" digital freedom. But it would be nicer if more of us were more self-aware we have freedoms others do not, and support more efforts to ensure more non-technical users can enjoy the same freedom. Because we understand better what is being lost, we have a duty to call out when we see digital freedoms being taken away from those who do not realize what they are losing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The US needs real consumer protection and data privacy laws, and enforcement actions to back them up. It's been left up to the free market to sort out, and the situation has gotten entirely out of fucking control.
Check out all these slimeballs scrambling to profit every time you click on a web page. Gathering your data, selling it amongst themselves and to the highest bidders, handing it to the NSA under the table. Your insurance company knows you visited marlboro.com to request a free deck of cards even though you've never smoked in your life. Target knows your daughter is pregnant before she tells anyone. Companies like ChoicePoint and Axciom, who you've never even done any business with, have enormous amounts of data about you, it's the only reason those companies exist. It goes on.
We've left this situation unregulated for long enough, we need real consumer protection legislation with teeth.
IT'S TIME FOR REAL PRIVACY LAWS IN AMERICA.
We had more privacy simply because information was limited by a lack of technology. Pre-internet, you could often move away from your past, your drinking escapades weren't posted on somebody's Facebook feed, and when the government wanted to watch you, it required a certain degree of manpower and physical retention that meant it generally wasn't worth it for trivial details.