"Online Privacy Alliance" Claims Privacy Too Expensive 126
Non-Newtonian Fluid writes: "An industry group headed by the usual suspects (Microsoft, AOL, Sun, AT&T, etc), just released four industry-funded studies that claim privacy is just too darn expensive, so why bother? They seem to want to kill any privacy legislation before it can get off the ground. Interestingly enough (though not surprising), they also seem to be working with the Direct Marketing Association on this." Scott McNealy, working hard to make sure we get over it. I should probably also mention that since the new health privacy regulations have been delayed (possibly indefinitely), the USA is firmly committed to remaining the industrial nation with the least privacy protection.
What about France? (Score:2)
I'll sell you my privacy for $19.99 (Score:1)
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what if the shoe is on the other foot? (Score:2)
Re:What about France? (Score:3)
Darned if you do, knitted if you don't.
Re:What about France? (Score:4)
Alex Bischoff
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And voiding privacy too lucrative... (Score:1)
Get me a baggy.... (Score:2)
So, let me get this straight. A big group of companies is saying that the reason they don't want privacy regulations, is that it would hurt the consumers?? Excuse me while I cough up a lung.
When was the last time that these companies stood for consumer's rights? Let's not forget that AT&T currently has a 40% stake in the cable TV market, and I'm sure would love to grab as much info about consumers from Digital TV as possible.
More of the same (Score:1)
-- Rich
I can see this (Score:2)
feh
People moan about morality being outdated, and then they run into something like this, an utter disrespect for the rights of others.
There is not that much distance between this and outright thievery, looting, and pillaging, and plundering. All it takes is a little less respect for others. That's all.
Re:What about France? (Score:1)
Disgusting, but unsurprising. (Score:2)
Keep it up, y'all.
OK,
- B
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Legally enforced privacy? (Score:1)
On a certain level, I have to agree with this. What we need is an informed consumer base able to make decisions with the knowledge of what privacy is being traded for what benefit. Having a mish-mash of laws to 'protect' us only confuses matters and sends MegaCorps scrambling for loopholes, which they are adept at exploiting.
Privacy should be based on technology and an infrastructure that supports it. The problem occurs when the same MegaCorp writing the software and influencing the infrastructure has a vested interest in using personal private information.
Indiana University Professor.... (Score:1)
Fred H. Cate, head of Indiana University's Information Law and Commerce Institute and a critic of new privacy laws, said the overall financial impact of privacy protections on all of the U.S. economy would be "in the trillions."
Can someone go and smack this guy please. Honestly, I know there are people from IU around here... Does this guy do a lot of LSD?
Imagine the future - I regard this as inevitable. (Score:5)
Privacy is a thing of the past. Everybody can freely find out all details about everybody else - past relationships, earnings, educational achievements, you name it it is just a short search away. The most amazing thing of all is that the people of this time like this state of affairs.
Imagine, the honesty in society. You can check up on prospective dates. Crime is incredibally low in this environment.
Society has become transparent. 'Privacy' is regarded as an outdated and rather curious concept, and everyone is of the opinion that the lack of privacy is a good thing for society as a whole - it engenders honesty.
Is this the future? I think it may well be. I can see that attitudes like this are becoming more and more common - my teenage neice already searches google for information on people she knows.
There is a case for saying that the lack of privacy leads to a transparent and crime free society, but there is a problem - corporations.
I think that the lack of privacy could well be abused by powerful corporations, this is the bugbear we must avoid.
I think that the EU is showing the way forward here, by standing against Corporations where America will not.
I must admit I am scared by the possibilities of this future, but I think it will happen.
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Re:what if the shoe is on the other foot? (Score:2)
I bet they wouldn't resist it at all - not because they don't mind the privacy intrusion (they would) but because the money they stand to make is so much greater than the money you or I stand to make.
For example, if I was a multimilliondollar CEO, I'd be perfectly fine with the fact that I lived a public life under public scrutiny. That's one of the drawbacks that comes with making the big bucks. However, I don't make six figures, and I'm certainly not a public figure, so I don't accept a lack of privacy as part of my job duties.
I'm not saying Princess Di deserved to get followed by papar^M^M^M^Mpappar^M^M^M photographers, but in this particular case, I'm sure these guys are all expecting someone to violate their privacy sooner or later. Bill Gates got one of his credit card numbers stolen a while back, and you didn't hear him whining about personal privacy. Stuff happens.
You gotta love it (Score:3)
Except of course, if something on the internet is happening, which prevents it from turning into how we see it.
Namely those terrorists, who want to keep us from turning the Internet into a huge Cable Television thingie and a gigantic technicolor shopping mall, generation Bazillions of $$$.
The studies published Monday conclude that proposals to limit companies from sharing or selling customer information without permission would cost 90 of the largest financial institutions $17 billion a year of added expenses, and would result in a $1 billion "information tax" on consumers through costs tacked onto products from catalogs and Internet retailers.
Yeah right, of course those companies have the right to waste my time, by spamming me by every available means and at my expense.
What's really worrysome is that given enough money, those jokers are actually able to turn this into a repectable organisation with near-official status. See the BSA.
Re:Get me a baggy.... (Score:1)
I think the reason they did this study was to show to the politicians just how much money they could skim off of consumers in a farce to 'protect our privacy'. Hmmm, I'll bet some of that money will find its way into some deep political pockets.
Re:I can see this (Score:2)
After all, he has said there is no such thing as privacy, and we should get over it. Well, we should give him a taste of what that really means.
Now this is just a fantasy, a wild opinion, but it is interesting as an educational exercise. It might be a very effective way to handle a lot of these jokers who want to pry into every one else's lives, but who would be very protective of their own privacy.
Re:Imagine the future - I regard this as inevitabl (Score:4)
That giant scream you just heard was the collective noise of every woman who's ever been stalked. If we could all suddenly get an unlimited amount of data on anyone we chose, Natalie Portman's every move would be stalked by thousands of drooling trolls. Do you see that as a good thing? A reduction in crime? Me, I don't.
It looks like it is the other way round (Score:1)
Re:what if the shoe is on the other foot? (Score:1)
This just in: (Score:5)
The reality though... (Score:4)
Re:I'll sell you my privacy for $19.99 (Score:4)
Me, I was holding out for $40, the free DSL [winfire.com], but when it finally became available in my area, I'd wised up.
Privacy is only 50U$D /year (Score:1)
By far one of the most interesting services I've seen in the privacy industry of late has to be zeroknowledge systems (http://www.freedom.net).
They have a distributed-trust network of anonimizing routers. All your traffic is layered in a multi-level encrypted route ball and is spit onto the internet once it has been decrypted by each hop on the way.
The windows version comes with a decent personal firewall, and the linux version is a kernel module and a GTK based client program. It intercepts all network communications at the socket layer and disallows any traffic generated by the user running the client that isn't to/from the freeom network. Very cool.
Re:The reality though... (Score:1)
Microsoft vs A. Loon, 2005 (Score:4)
Judge (skeptical, but interested in that video): Are these -really- relevent to the case? They seem very intrusive.
Lawyer: Your honor, privacy was deemed too expensive, by Congress, in 2001. I am merely trying to save this court an unnecessary financial burden.
Microsoft's Lawyer: Ummmm, when we said "too expensive", we did not mean "too expensive". We were misquoted.
law will make it a even field (Score:1)
This should scare you (Score:1)
1) What do we know about big giant corporations?
They are ultimatly concerned with growing their revenues, this is usually at the expense of the truth, or privacy, or "fair play."
2) What is the trend among big business today?
Mega-merger. The big boys keep merging and forming even bigger corporations. AOL-Time Warner anybody? This trend will continue too. What's the joke... in a few years we will only have 3 or 4 companies.. Sony, IBM, MS, GM...
3) Who will be able to protect us in the future when these giant companies, with gross amounts of money, want to track us like a dog?
Nobody.
What kind of legislation? (Score:1)
Considering the nature of the Internet, isn't it possible to achieve a high level of privacy without new laws? What kind of laws would smooth the way for technology-based solutions?
Nick
Actual privacy laws? (Score:1)
Just out of curiosity, is anyone going to actually comment on specific privacy laws, or just spout off knee-jerk reactions to The Man putting the little guy down?
They are right...it IS too expensive... (Score:4)
Consider: Corporations now make money using data that belongs to you (phone number, ssn, number of children, etc). They either make this money directly (by selling it to advertisers) or indirectly (by using it themselves in "targetted advertising", etc). Privacy laws stop them from making this money.
But it gets worse than that: Really STRICT privacy laws actually COST them money. They'd have to have compliance officers, regulatory reports, privacy consultants, policy creators/enforcers, etc.
Imagine YOU were a company that was making, say, $1,000,000/year on private information. Then a law is passed and you are looking at paying OUT $100,000/year instead. You'd be pretty pissed, wouldn't you?
NOTE I'm not saying that we should just bend over and let the corps give us the shaft, however. I'm just saying that anyone who didn't see this coming must have fallen off the turnip truck recently. The only antidote to lobbying is MORE lobbying. Call or write you congresscritters and tell them how YOU (not your cable or phone company) feel about privacy. It would probably also help to call the companies in question, but that should be a second step, not a first one.
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Re:You gotta love it (Score:1)
Re:Imagine the future - I regard this as inevitabl (Score:2)
This might not be such a bad thing, if everyone were on an equal footing. But that is unlikely. Some people will benefit from this tremendously and others only indirectly if at all.
Also, a shift to a transparent society is one that people will simply not be able to opt out of.
The end of privacy will be a non-voluntary transaction which benefits one side only. That could be a reasonable definition of the word "robbery".
Grocery cards? (Score:2)
- Lie on the application. This worked nicely when I needed a Kroger card (Blacksburg Kroger, for those who are curious), and the sales-droid was none the wiser. If you choose to use this technique, I'd recommend writing an at-least-plausible address. And, of course, be sure to check the "don't mail me" checkbox, as returned mail would be a dead giveaway
;).
- Don't shop there. This seems to be the Most Pure solution, from a cypherpunk point of view. Then again, it could be expensive, if it means missing out on sales. Pleasantly, there's at least one grocer near me (Shopper's Food Warehouse) that doesn't yet require a grocery card to get the sale prices.
- Trade cards / make fake cards. I read a webpage about some cypherpunks creating their own barcodes (?), but dammit if I can't find the link at the moment. I also read on that page that apparently cypherpunks regularly trade supermarket cards at their meetings. This approach seems to have the dual benefits of both get-the-sales-prices and mess-with-the-supermarkets. Unfortunately, it seems to be the case that there aren't any cypherpunk meetings near me (DC metro area), AFAIK.
So, any ideas?Alex Bischoff
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Democracy in action (Score:2)
Imagine that. A politician trying to protect his constituents....
Wait, this can be done better.
Senator's sysadmin: "We get signal!"
Senator: "Main screen turn on."
Lobbyist: "How are you gentlemen...all your privacy are belong to us!"
Lobbyist: "You have no time to ride your horse. Make your time."
Senator: "What you say!!"
Now, that's more like it.
w/m
A while back... (Score:2)
I submitted this article [slashdot.org] to Slashdot. This sort of plays right into that topic. View your privacy as an asset of yours, one that can be sold or bartered. In other words, if you want to buy something without having your privacy violated (e.g. the store keeping an entry for you in their records) be prepared to pay extra.
What I am essentially saying is that you can view receiving spam from Amazon with their recommendations, and having them know what you buy, is part of the price that you paid for that book (or CD, etc.). If Amazon isn't willing to accept this deal, then I'm sure that some other e-tailer will.
For instance, you can use NetZero et al. You're paying for internet access, but instead of paying in cash, you're paying in privacy. Whereas, should you go to a regular ISP, you pay more cash, but less privacy (a good ISP only logs stuff that's directly related to QoS; limiting the number of ICMP packets that can be sent from one account to, say 1 per 20 seconds, or so is a good idea, imho).
You are too late... (Score:1)
Short synopsis for the lazy: Tech breakthrough allows cheap devices to create wormholes that into any location at any time. So you can spy on what your neighbor is doing or what your husband said yesterday.
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Re:You gotta love it (Score:1)
Yes, of course. This is because they are so concerned about our well-being.
Oh, and since I have the chance to educate you, never forget that the earth is flat and pigs can fly...
Circular arguments (Score:1)
Actually I think that argument makes a lot of sense, however they are using it to get the wrong conclusion.
They are saying that because it's ok (or at least legal) to do this offline, it should be legal to do it online.
Of course the other logical argument would be that it should be illegal regardless. How come none of these people make that argument? I wonder....
Privacy you pay for (Score:3)
Then you are really entitled to talk about privacy, but you wouldn't want to, because it will disclose the important information about your current location and your name.
Re:Imagine the future - I regard this as inevitabl (Score:2)
I knew this dude from Metropolis
Who's mightier than all of us
The villains they hate him,
The media chase him
And that's why he stays anonymous!
This utopian "lack of privacy" does not "engender honesty" any more than the conditioning of Alex in Anthony Burgess's Clockwork Orange engendered in him lawfulness, kindness or respect for his fellow man. The same way The Brave New World engendered contentment in Bernard Marx.
I don't even think your scenario is that accurate. Not without some Huxleyan conditioning.
Any sociologist will tell you that privacy is a basic human need. Haven't you ever wanted to "just get away from it all"??
Just Like Communism Reduced Crime in Russia (Score:2)
Transparency would only work in theoretical ideal world where everyone's inforamation was available equally and powerful elites could not choose to share or not share at their desire. Not very likely in the real world.
Its not the corporations.... (Score:1)
Why worry about large corporations? All they want you to do is to buy things and not harm you.
What I'm afraid are individuals and informal groups who want to do harm to me because of my past. They could look up my sexual orientation, the type of pr0n sites I prefer or my religous background.
Except that privacy costs nothing... (Score:3)
But a corporate funded "study" is like a comercial saying "eggs are good for you" being paid for by the Egg Farmers of America or a "study" paid by M$ stating that "yup. windows is the best." Really.
Now LACK of privacy costs a lot. It costs the victims everything. And the next time someone gets turned down for a job because they smoked a joint 14 years ago or because their brother's wife's cousin was arrested for writing a computer virus, then maybe people will start to realize privacy isn't just about hiding crime, its about protect ourselves being victimized.
Take the card... (Score:1)
although if they really want to they can always tie it to my credit card... same as any other store.
Open source? (Score:2)
If these companies (AOL, Microsoft, Sun, etc)are so concerned about not keeping things "under wraps" or "private" if you will, then why don't they open up all of the source code of all of their major software for everyone to see?
Surely, this would be an excellent gesture of their faith in the idea that Privacy (and keeping secrets) hurts consumers.
;)
Re:wb Bob (Score:1)
We all learned the story about how Pablo Cruise was imprisoned in 1802 in Spain because he spoke out about the oppression of the Spanish government. We know that Pablo spent 20 years of his life in prison fighting that fight. We also remember back to the early 1900's when a little known man named Bob Segar who ran a printing press was put in jail for 10 years because he stood up for freedom of speech. These are some of the lessons we learned about in grade school as we were growing up, but they don't tell the whole tale. They don't tell about a man from Nicarauga named Ted Nugent who was shot by the federalies because he yelled the truth from the top of buildings...Or the thousands of others who have given their lives for freedom...
So yes, please do continue on and get the word out about how Bob Abooey has been oppressed on Slashdot and had his freedoms taken away from. THE TRUTH MUST GET OUT ! Say, by the way, do these pants make my butt look big?
Yours,
Re:A while back... (Score:2)
Individual Responsibility (Score:2)
In essence, privacy should, or perhaps has, beceome a technology. It should be treated like one. This, however is difficult because companies and organizations have been given (undue) priveledges that interefere with the ability of people to choose the privacy that they want. Also, regulations and concerns of "national security" have added to the availabilty of privacy.
Sometimes it's in the form of monopolies, or centralized government systems (like hospitals, and even citizenship.)
Clearly, though, membership in society generally involves some compromise of privacy.
So, perfect privacy is unattainable, but that which we do have is truely up to ourselves to maintain.
Steve
William Safire (Score:1)
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Earth (Score:3)
health privacy regs (Score:1)
Sound like the Sec Argument... (Score:2)
It wont be until a majority of people, of which the
"Me Ted"
Make money fast! Sell your friends out! (Score:2)
I think a nice idea would be a anonymous way to buy stuff online. But the reason govt and businesses don't like anonymous people running around is because of the few that abuse that system. The swiss banking system is great, but when you have the Russian Mafia holding their money in it, then you need to change some regulations. The person on Ebay who gets ripped off isn't going to be happy with privacy and anonymous sellers.
Plus, by combining all the info available on the web from different companies you can have exact demographics and know the markets needs and wants. I run a website that has a mailing list which I am sure someone would love to buy. Speaking of that, what Linux/Computer/Geek type site (Hmmm...let me THINK of a GEEK site) wouldn't love to get the mailing list from /.? They know the demographics of the site, they know we like to keep our bawls cool. I see dollars signs already!
The more electronic the world gets, the more personal information will be available to anyone with some cash. It's sad, I don't like it, but that's the way it is. Just remember though, the govt and businesses are there for YOU. If you don't like it, post your comment on the door of City Hall, not just here.
=-=-=-=-=
Re:Open source? (Score:2)
Let those willing to pay for it pay for it. (Score:1)
A couple problems. (Score:5)
Unfortunately, I agree that we're moving towards a world of transparent information on the wage-slave class. But the information will most assuredly not be transparent for those with power, money, or criminal intent.
Re:Grocery cards? (Score:1)
Shopper's not only doesn't have any club cards, it's *way* cheaper than Safeway, even with the discounts. You may have to get used to bagging your own groceries, but they don't even charge for the bags anymore.
This just in! (Score:2)
Re:Imagine the future - I regard this as inevitabl (Score:1)
What can I say? Incredibly naive.
Do you honestly believe privacy laws are meant to protect criminals? Or increases crime? Or that in such a society crimals could and would (be able?) not hide their acts?
In an enclosed community where everyone knows each other you don't need privacy laws. Why not? You know who you are dealing with and probably what they do with what they know about you.
Privacy is the right to hide information about yourself from people you don't know, (or don't like), who may use it to meddle with you life against your wishes
I can't keep tabs on everyone who has information about me, or what they say or do with it. I can be affected by it.
If you remove my right to privacy how will this stop people from messing about with me?
It only makes it easier for people to fuck with you!
How much spam, junkmail, abuse do you want?
I don't want everyone to know religion/hobbies/whatever because I can't trust people I do not know.
Privacy is not about dirty little secrets, it's about a horde of little things about you which all add up to you, your persona, your life. Knowledge is power and I prefer to choose who to show my vulnerable side.
Think, before you post please!
Re:William Safire (Score:2)
Re:Grocery cards? (Score:1)
BTW, yes, I just went to VBC#2 and paid 99c for the product. :)
Re:Dehumanizing (Score:1)
"1.To deprive of human qualities such as individuality, compassion, or civility:"
Individuality, compassion, civility. Would such noble qualities survive in a world where others can pry into EVERY facet of your life? Would society "damn forever" people who made bad decisions at an early age? Freedom is the condition of being free of restraints, not having to fear what others think about your past, your monetary position or what colour socks you wear on Sunday. So, then, what is the opposite of freedom? Slavery? Would average people be blinded by the innocent notion that they really do have the right to view information about anyone, anything and believe all that they read? It would be simple for those who control the information to feed false hopes and illusions to the populace, and they would swallow it without question, for in the future as you describe they wouldn't have a choice. Society would perceive itself as free, but in reality they would be slaves to the scourge of Information, clamouring for her favour and cringing from her retribution.
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Re:Microsoft vs A. Loon, 2005 (Score:1)
Re:Imagine the future - I regard this as inevitabl (Score:1)
But Corps are not the only problem, citizens need protection from the government too. (think: big brother). Do I sound crazy? Maybe, but hundreds of novelists and movie makers can't be all wrong!
Privacy all or nothing (Score:1)
I think not. Rather they should consider that what makes it easy for them in the short run, may have dire consequences for them in the long haul.
Most people will not want to know my health history and DNA, but Bill Gates' health history and DNA would be news. How much would he have to pay to keep his and his family's health facts secrect?
Information wants to be free.
Re:What about France? (Score:2)
a) personnal encryption with up to 128 bits key is totally legal in France.
b) privacy is not cryptography. Privacy is your doctor not selling your health data to insurers or drug companies.
c) French legislation addressed IT-related privacy problems in 1978 or 1979. The resulting law, dubbed "freedom and IT", became the template for European online privacy standards, and is backed by a permanent independant enforcement commission (CNIL). Basically, anyone owns his/her data, has a right to access and modify it. Filing the race, religion or political opinions is illegal.
Noticable enforcements of this law have included the finance ministry being refused access to a private pay-TV customers files (to x-check with people paying or not the TV tax), and the defense ministry being kept from having a file of HIV-pos servicemen.
A t ypical statement when somebody doesn't (Score:1)
"It's too expensive"... "It's too hard to do"... "oh, and by the way, not doing that conveniently saves my ass on a few issues"
Unfortunately, this time, these corporations should have no choice-- regardless of how much it fucking costs. Privacy is at the very center of everything that allows us to be individuals. If intellectual property is sacred then my most cherished intellectual property, which is my identity and privacy, better fucking be sacrosanct.
Maybe Scott has a vision of everyone running around like Borg drones with no rights to personal thoughts or privacy but I certainly don't.
Forgive me (Score:2)
Re:what if the shoe is on the other foot? (Score:1)
Re:Grocery cards? (Score:2)
I think that getting a grocery card is a pretty clear-cut case of explicitly trading some information about you in exchange for discounts. What makes you think you are entitled to a grocery card?
Even with privacy laws in place, it is up to people to protect their own privacy. Worried about corporations misusing your information? Don't give it to them! I know it's not always that simple, but in the case of grocery cards, it certainly is.
Just because invasion of privacy is wrong, doesn't make it okay for you to volunteer faulty information in exchange for something of value. That's called cheating, lying and stealing.
Your overblown sense of entitlement is repulsive. Corporations don't owe you shit. Learn some ethics and take some bloody responsibility for your own privacy.
/bluesninja
Coprighted Personal Information? (Score:1)
If yes, why?
If no, why not?
-rao
Privacy will continue for the powerful (Score:1)
This will never happen. Does anyone seriously believe that Dick Cheney or Bill Gates will allow everyone to pick through their bank records, or that Microsoft and McDonald's will allow the general public to listen in on every part of their business dealings?
This is really about determining how little privacy those who are not rich and powerful will have. Ba aa aa...
--Mike
Re:Imagine the future - I regard this as inevitabl (Score:1)
Re:Grocery cards? (Score:2)
The supermarket I work for has a "shopper card" program (I believe it was the first supermarket to have one). On the application (which just asks for name and address) you have the choice not to receive any mailings or have your purchases tracked for marketing purposes. Yes, the store does track your purchases but that data isn't collected with your personal info. Any mailings are send out by the store; personal information and shopping records don't leave the company.
For example, let's say Brand "K" wants to increase sales of their cereals. They'll have the store send out coupons to customers who have been regularly purchasing Brand "G" or Brand "P" cereals as an incentive to get them to switch.
As I said, it all depends on the supermarket, so YMMV.
But, if you're so inclined to be anonymous, fill out the application to get the card and then (like you said) generate your own barcode for it. Go to this site http://www.milk.com/barcode [milk.com] and enter a fake number. This will work for most stores that use a standard UPC barcode (12 digit) and most do, especially if they have IBM registers (which most do). The first digit is a 4, the next 10 can be your random choosing, the the 12th is the check digit that will be calculated by the CGI script.
But, IMHO, the real problem right now is companies that store your personal information in internet-accessable databases that are full of security holes that almost any script kiddie could break into. THAT is the real privacy danger and that's probablly why Microsoft, Sun, and AOL say that its "too expensive" to protect privacy. Any legislation passes to protect provacy could make them liable for security holes in their software.
Re:Imagine the future - I regard this as inevitabl (Score:2)
As a simple example, a friend of mine once wrote a program that would alert him whenever someone fingered his account.
Then there's the Webcrawler search voyeur, which lets you see all search requests made to Webcrawler. In this hypothetical future, it is conceivable that any search engine would be required to provide such an interface, and people could set up programs to monitor these streams for their own names, for example.
Re:Imagine the future - I regard this as inevitabl (Score:1)
Except for one big problem...My private life is none of your goddamn business. What I like, dislike, do (and whom with) is none of your goddamn business. If I wanted people's noses stuck into my personal life, I would create one of those lame, ridiculous personal websites with all my personal details up for every buttwipe, geek, dweeb, pervert, psycho, and yes, even normal to dive into. But I don't do this and I wont.
Unless I agree otherwise, my medical history, personal beliefs and attitudes, my hobbies, my preferences, my sex life is NOBODY'S business but mine (and those directly involved). Period.
I'm no gun nut, but I would certainly take up arms to protect my ultimate rights of privacy from the world you seem to envision as desireable. No. It. Is. NOT. Desireable.
Re:William Safire (Score:1)
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Being there (Score:2)
Remember that wonderful movie with Peter Sellers, Being There [movies2go.net] ? (here, too [geocities.com]).
Here is a guy with the ultimate privacy: absolutely NO RECORD AT ALL, and when the President of the United States asks the FBI to do a background check on him, and when they come back totally empty-handed, the big-shots really start to shit in their pants, and some even think of having him run for president (I guess that's a prophecy of Ronald Reagan)...
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Excuse me? (Score:1)
I can't sell your information so I'm going to charge you extra. Something here doesn't sound right. Like 90 of the "largest financial institutions" couldn't handle 17 billion less in income. Cry me a river.
Orwellian organization names (Score:1)
The Nazi's had a "Charitable Transport Company for the Sick", which was responsible for picking up sick and elderly people and having them euthanized.
I'm not suggesting a moral equivalency betwen the Nazis and the corporations in the Online Privacy Alliance. But if these sorts of deceitful names are loathsome when tyrants use them, it should be made clear that they are just as loathsome when corporations use them.
Can't have it both ways (Score:2)
The Napster lawsuit says that I have no right to share corporate data personally across the internet.
This group is saying that I have no right to stop corporations from sharing my personal data across the internet.
I'll make them a deal, drop the Napster lawsuit, repeal the DMCA, and they can do what they want. Fair?
- Twid
Hmm... (Score:1)
And to think that less than a year ago, these same corporations tried to state that self-regulated privacy initiatives was the best way to go. They touted their privacy policies in the noses of every customer that visited their website or bought their product.
The sheer volume of mass privacy violations have proven that these initiatives are only PR fronts. The simple fact is that these companies don't care at all about the privacy of individuals.
As far as I am concerned, the US government has given them a chance and they failed. Now it's time to pay the piper.
Re:A couple problems. (Score:1)
Re:A couple problems. (Score:2)
2. The reason errors occur so much, and are so hard to catch, and the credit bureau's are so obnoxious is that we treat identifying information as secrets. Once upon a time, you couldn't even get your own credit report. If the industry weren't so stupid as to treat identifiers like secret keys, and we weren't so paranoid about it, it would be a heck of a lot easier to verify information, and the power provided by the credit bureaus' monopoly on your credit history would be destroyed.
3. The more data there is to cross-reference, the harder it is to pass a forgery. One instance of anything can be a forgery, or signed by a stolen key, or whatever, and you'd never be able to prove it.
4. Or, because no one has any secrets, people will realize that social conservatism is hyporcracy, and people will stop giving a damn about prudish things. And if you are concerned about your boss judging you for what you do outside of your work, then get over it, because they can already. With total transparency however, you can turn the tables on him, as can everyone else under him.
More importantly, there will be greater awareness to that sort of thing in the workforce as a whole, thus changing the very nature of the labor market that currently allows that sort of thing. In addition to full knowledge of salaries and past employment history of other workers, it will be a lot easier for people negotiate a fair salary and fair working conditions.
The fact is, people are already paranoid about people will perceive their actions, because of that knowlege can be used against them by those in power. Transparency removes that power. The most conservative societies are the ones where secrecy reigns. Open societies are the most open to difference. Compare thehippie commune to the corporate boardroom. Which one trades secrets like a commodity?
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Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom
Re:A couple problems. (Score:3)
Certainly there are, just there are problems with the current system. The current systems tends concentrate power, whereas a more open system holds the possibility of distributing that power by distributing the information.
You can't make a fresh start.
Certainly this is a big problem but I would also argue that it is a artifact of the current information hiding culture that we expect people to be perfect. We don't tolerate mistakes of any kind. And this is allowed to continue because we hide the mistakes. We lie about smoking pot in college rather than collectively admitting the sometimes people make mistakes but that doesn't mean they are bad people. We expect saints where none can be found. Of course, it certainly isn't guaranteed that removing privacy will automatically force people to be more accepting; who can know how technology will shape society in the future? But it certainly is harder to throw stones when everyone lives in a glass house.
Don't count on the potential date remembering to check the trustworthiness of the reporter.
I would argue that this is because of the up-to-present practice of accepting as gospel information because it came from The Powers That Be. How many media stories on 20/20 even have much in the way of references? And how easy is it to check on those references? But I'll often read a paper on the net and the references will include links to other papers on the net, allowing me to check facts on my own.
You can't trust the data.
But in the transparent society the idea is that when something goes on your credit report you know about it instantly. You don't find out about it two years later when you go to take out a mortgage on a house. And since all information is open it is much easier to prove your case. When you have tracking numbers for every piece of email you send to your credit card company, when you have a copy of every piece of email exhanged, when you have a record and transcript of every phone call made, it is much harder for Visa to say "you never send in a payment". By making the data continually available it is much easier to incrementally validate it.
For every legitimate change (e.g., hiding information about tempting kidnapping target) there will be hundreds or thousands of fradulent changes.
And you will know immediately when the change happens and you can take preventive action. What's more, the more open society it is, the harder it is for some one to make these fraudulent changes anonymously. Did they connect to the internet from a payphone? Well, every pay phone has a video camera and fingerprinting.
Society will become ultra-conformist.
In my opinion this is certainly the most likely and negative downside to a complete loss of privacy. In some circumstances, the comformity may be a blessing. After all, if everyone conforms to respecting other people's opinions and tolerating differences you will be hard pressed to find people saying that's a bad thing. On the other hand, I could easily see life being extraordinarily difficult for homosexuals, swingers, Monkee's fans, and other alternative lifestyle advocates. But again, I would also argue that our current intolerance is largely because we hide these things right now. If they are brought out into the open people become forced to deal with the fact that their favorite musician is homosexual or that the CEO of their company likes the BeeGees. After all, ignorance is the foundation of intolerance.
Re:Privacy will continue for the powerful (Score:2)
Your argument is essentially the position that we should prevent private citizens the use of survelance technology, while trusting the government to be responsible with it.
Yea... I thought you'd see it my way.
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Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom
The importance of privacy... (Score:2)
Well we see that:
"The money spent to produce the four studies underscores the importance the industry attaches to the issue. Turner said his study, which examined catalog sales, cost $50,000. Another was funded with a $10,000 grant from the World Bank. The two other studies, funded by Ernst & Young LLP and the Tower Group consulting firm, each cost more than $50,000, but the firms declined to say exactly how much they spent."
That is what they spend to save US$17 billion of expenses and a US$1 billion of a foggy "information tax"... Well US$18 billion that they save us from paying (anyway the consumer pays all)
It looks great...
But they claim that 17 billion will be saved by tacking your privacy. Besides the save is made thanks to the fact that someone sells and another buys such information. So there will be people getting some profit from it... Well, under such a figure, profit will be by the hundreds of millions. May be a billion, what is an interesting coincidence with that "information tax"... Well corps don't like to loose money. Not even that one they expect to get...
Now, let's go back to the citation. They paid nearly US$160,000 for these studies. DAMN! Nearly 0,02% of the profit they may be waiting to get. THAT'S A GOLD POT STUDY!!..
Of course they're anti-privacy (Score:2)
Corporations in the United States enjoy plenty of freedoms. One being the ability to collect and own information about you. They oppose laws that would aim to curb this?! No kidding!
With Dubya in the White House, you can bet that their concerns will be more important than all of what you whiney pro-privacy anarchists have to say.
Realistically, true privacy is a matter of personal devotion/paranoia. You can whine and bitch all you want about insecure tieclip.com is with your credit card, but most people don't think twice when they hand their credit card to a waiter and he leaves the room to charge it.
There are very few people, some you might consider insane, who will drastically inconveniance themselves in the name of privacy. Scott McNealy's ranting isn't all that unfounded.
Wrong, they want to charge HMOs for killing you (Score:2)
Dubya decides that the death tax could be used to pay for shipping if he can't makes states pay.
Gosh! Everything just costs so-o-o much! (Score:2)
Let's see... In the last few months we've, so far, heard:
Let's add a couple more. You know they're coming:
It boggles the mind that an entity that exists only on paper and by the permission of the government (You remember the government, don't you? That little thing ``By and Of The People''?) has more rights than ordinary citizens. How long before there is a major backlash by the public against the perks handed out to corporations by local, state, and the federal governments? I'm guessing not too long.
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Re:Privacy will continue for the powerful (Score:2)
But big companies would continue to flout the law, paying a fine or two here and there.
It's like credit reporting agencies. If a private person wrote that it was a fact that I had done 'X, Y, and Z' which proved I was a bad credit risk, I could sue them for damages if that wasn't true. CRAs though bought a few politicians and are protected with a law basically giving them immunity in these cases. As long as someone tells them it's true, they're not liable. Even if common sense would say it wasn't true. (They could report I incurred debt before I was born, if someone told them that.)
Must be nice to be the executive of a multi-billion dollar company and not be bound in any way by the law.
Re:Grocery cards? (Score:2)
http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/cypherpunks/Home.htm
Re:Privacy is only 50U$D /year (Score:2)
I haven't found a site that tries to deny anonymous access yet that I haven't been able to access anonymously one way or another. And I have yet to come across anyone attempting to block freedom.net, though I'm sure someone has.
Poor celebrities... (Score:2)
So, if you're a celebrity, even a minor one, you're screwed. There's no way you could monitor all those people checking you out.
Re:This just in: (Score:2)
Pollution laws cost too much money why can't we just dump whatever poisons we want wherever we want.
Safety regulations cost too much money who cares if a few undred of our employees die we can always hire some more.
Minimum wage laws cost too much why can't we just pay people 10 cents a day like they do in pakistan.
What is the difference between a businessman and a jet airplane? The jet stops whining when it gets to Hawaii.
Re:Privacy you pay for (Score:2)
Actually, before you can dig your own well, you have to file for permits. Not likely that you can dig a well or install a generator if you're only renting too. If you don't pay taxes you'll probably attract unwanted attention from IRS soon enough.
What you're saying is that if we live like bums (because you can't get much of an education or a decent job without organizations getting info on you) we can have privacy. The other choice is to pay organizations enough that they will guard your info for you. This is an option if you're extremely wealthy. Neither should be necessary, and neither is practical for most people. So basically everything you said is pretty much worthless to everyone. (Which means this post isn't worth much either, except that I got to say what I wanted) Sorry :)
Re:Poor celebrities... (Score:2)
Maybe. Again, this is quite hypothetical. We're talking fifty years from now, as I recall. Who's to say we won't have "intelligent" filtering for such information.
A sort of simple example of this already exists now in caller-id and the various offshoots. People can block their number from the caller-id system, but then again, people with caller-id can automatically refuse calls from people who have blocked their number from appearing.
Re:Poor celebrities... (Score:2)
A sort of simple example of this already exists now in caller-id and the various offshoots.
That's great, but that wouldn't work in a "transparent society." It wouldn't be open. You couldn't be unlisted in the phone book. Not sure that smart filtering would help much either. It wouldn't be able to block people since that would remove the transparency. It might be able to do a background check for criminal history or something like that on everybody that checks up on you, but I'm not sure that would help either. About the best it could do is confirm that some of these people are dangerous nutjobs. Celebs know that already though. That's one reason they are as secretive as they often are. That won't be an option for them in a transparent society.