"Online Privacy Alliance" Claims Privacy Too Expensive

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.

Re:What about France?

That law has since been dropped. Interestingly, because it, too, was too expensive. :)

Darned if you do, knitted if you don't.

Re:What about France?

That is no longer the case [cwis.kub.nl] in France -- crypto up to 128 bits is now allowed (IIRC).

Alex Bischoff
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Imagine the future - I regard this as inevitable.

2050 AD:

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 'Privacy' is regarded as an outdated and rather curious concept, and everyone is of the opinion that the lack of privacy is a good thing for society as a whole - it engenders honesty.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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You gotta love it

"I fundamentally object to carving out the Internet. Let's not single out and attack the medium,"

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:Imagine the future - I regard this as inevitabl

Imagine, the honesty in society. You can check up on prospective dates. Crime is incredibally low in this environment.

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.

This just in:

"Hospital consortium" claims cost of saving people is "too expensive", points at rising costs of treatment. Recommends against seeking medical advice for illnesses, advises killing oneself now to lower hospital expenditure.

The reality though...

I don't know how privacy regulations are in the USA, but I do know we have privacy laws here in the Netherlands. If they actually *work* is a completely different story. Companies *must* give you insight in data they haven on you, but in reality it is almost impossible to track down what information the do have on you. I have tried this with a few companies: I was constantly being put on hold, talked with a lot of different people, and nobody knew anything. One company could tell me that they regularly bought personal data from 'another' company, but they couldn't which one. So you can have all the laws and regulations thath you want, but what companies do with your information is quite something else!

Re:I'll sell you my privacy for $19.99

That was the general idea behind free ISPs, actually, and your price was right on target. For the equivalent of $19.99 per month, you lost all privacy of internet surfing. The company knew where you went, what you bought, who you e-mailed, you name it. You weren't alone in being willing to sell out.

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.

Microsoft vs A. Loon, 2005

A. Loon's Lawyer: If it pleases your honour, I wish to submit as evidence Bill Gates' credit card details, mental health reports, school records and favourite color, along with video evidence of nocturnal activities.

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.

They are right...it IS too expensive...

...for THEM.

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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Privacy you pay for

Anybody can have as much privacy as he/she is willing to shell out for. You can buy things on-line, it's cheaper but you give out your information, such as your name, address, credit card numbers etc. You can buy things in a usual store, it'll probably be more expensive, don't use credit card, only use cash, don't feel in any customer service cards, don't bother with warranty and at least you will have more and better control of your financial information, your name and address info. Buy yourself a power generator and your energy company will not know anything about you. Dig your own well, you won't have to be worried about your water supplier selling your personal info. Don't use banks, whatsoever and don't have any credit cards, don't buy a cell phone, don't use a computer that is connected to any network (only use anonymous connections from libraries.) Only work for cash and never ever file tax returns. Never buy any property, only rent space for cash (then you don't have to bother with the electric line and your water supplier.) Keep all your information with you at all times. Do not own a vehicle or a driver's license.

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.

Except that privacy costs nothing...

The real problem (at least in the corporate eye) is that they can't MAKE money on privacy. Think about all the demographics they can sell by collecting your information. Actually storing all of that into a database costs money, be in in hard drive space, computer power, or electricity. If it wasn't collected, stored, and processed, they wouldn't spend a dime.

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.

Earth

Earth, by David Brin, imagines exactly this future. Lots of people carry video cameras which stream live to the web. People who want privacy are regarded as strange, and possibly dangerous. Switzerland has gotten nuked for refusing to reveal the account information of its bank customers. Lots of other stuff in there as well. Good book.

A couple problems.

There are a couple problems with this utopia.

• You can't make a fresh start. Remember that psycho date you had in college? Her comments about you can now be reviewed by any future date, including the woman who would have become your wife. Don't count on the potential date remembering to check the trustworthiness of the reporter.
• You can't trust the data. Credit reports today have significant errors in about a third of them. My own credit reports originally showed several accounts I never opened, but which were simply misfiled. Other entries involved a dispute, but the "fair credit reporting act" has some loopholes that allow the CRA to ignore consumer comments. When more data is collected, more errors will occur and the portrait they paint is increasingly inaccurate.
• You can't trust the data. The more important this data becomes to everyday life, the more pressure there will be to manipulate it. For every legitimate change (e.g., hiding information about tempting kidnapping target) there will be hundreds or thousands of fradulent changes. Look at the primary effect of the law requiring documentation before anyone can be hired in the US - an explosion in identity theft as illegal aliens masquerade as citizens so they can be hired - and multiply it a thousand-fold.
• Society will become ultra-conformist. Because nobody has a private life, everyone will act like the proverbial Oldsmobile dealer in a small Texas town. He might not be religious, but he'll be prominent in church every week because his many of his customers are. He might not like football, but he'll be a leading member of the HS's booster club because many of his customers do. When your future boss can find out what church you attend, what books you read, what movies you watch, what music you enjoy ('cause you now download it all and those records are available), etc., and the reason why you aren't hired is one of the few things that isn't transparent, you'll find yourself under immense pressure to always second-guess how others will perceive your actions.

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:A couple problems.

There are a couple problems with this utopia.

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.