>> [snip] electronic commerce [snip] > And what part of the economy would that be? Is that the all-too-crucial overblown > speculative-bubble part? I haven't heard of any e-companies that are in the black yet.
Obviously, the report refers not to the amazons and ebays but rather to the banks and other "old" businesses that do most -- if not all -- of their transactions electronically. Would _you_ put your trust (and cash) in a bank whose inner workings are open for any script kiddie to exploit?
Of course, there are differences between EU members too. Finland is somewhat more relaxed about databases -- not much, mind you -- OTOH, spamming (only from Finland, unfortunately) is illegal. Finnish readers might want to check out this (re: spam) and this (re: MMFs); others will have to wait until babelfish starts eating finnish, too. (The first one forbids using automatic methods (as in email, faxes; NOT as in "I'm mailing this individually to everyone, so it can't be spam!" (yes, that happens...)), the second one forbids MMF's, chain letters etc., like just about any other country's laws do.) (I'm starting to think Netscape needs to borrow emacs' brace-highlighting..) Still, everything you give your address that will get you snailmail-spam (SnailSPAM(TM)? yeourgh:) has to explicitly mention the fact; IANAL, but email is treated similarly.
It would be interesting to hear what the American privacy organizations said of European laws on the matter, though.
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>> [snip] electronic commerce [snip]
> And what part of the economy would that be? Is that the all-too-crucial overblown
> speculative-bubble part? I haven't heard of any e-companies that are in the black yet.
Obviously, the report refers not to the amazons and ebays but rather to the banks and other "old" businesses that do most -- if not all -- of their transactions electronically. Would _you_ put your trust (and cash) in a bank whose inner workings are open for any script kiddie to exploit?
Of course, there are differences between EU members too. Finland is somewhat more relaxed about databases -- not much, mind you -- OTOH, spamming (only from Finland, unfortunately) is illegal. Finnish readers might want to check out this (re: spam) and this (re: MMFs); others will have to wait until babelfish starts eating finnish, too. (The first one forbids using automatic methods (as in email, faxes; NOT as in "I'm mailing this individually to everyone, so it can't be spam!" (yes, that happens...)), the second one forbids MMF's, chain letters etc., like just about any other country's laws do.) (I'm starting to think Netscape needs to borrow emacs' brace-highlighting..)
Still, everything you give your address that will get you snailmail-spam (SnailSPAM(TM)? yeourgh:) has to explicitly mention the fact; IANAL, but email is treated similarly.
It would be interesting to hear what the American privacy organizations said of European laws on the matter, though.