The ‘Do Not Track’ Minefield
The privacy landscape is bumpy and dangerous. It all started with the FTC’s report in early December. A distant cry was heard calling for a system like ‘Do Not Call’ that could apply to internet advertising and solve the woes of the consumer, protecting them from the evils of behavioral tracking. Shortly thereafter, we hear that Microsoft is planning a do not track option in the next version of Internet Explorer. Then this month Mozilla announced that it will provide a unique new type of header that when set, will tell websites not to track this particular user. And to cap it all off we have the DMA proposal of placing a little icon on every ad allowing the consumer to click on the icon, read privacy policies and then decide whether to allow that advertiser or not.
The Commerce Department Weighs In On Privacy
I guess it was inevitable. The FTC released their report a few weeks ago and this was the Commerce Departments opposing viewpoint. In summary, they noted that consumer were losing trust in online commerce providers and that their main objective was to address this issue while preserving innovation. This is always the excuse companies use when being threatened by ANY law or regulation. It goes as far back as the late 1950′s when car companies claimed that if they were forced to put seat belts in their cars, innovation in the automotive industry would stop.
The basic problem is that regulation causes increased costs. Costs to implement, costs to regulate and costs to litigate violations. And as consumers those costs get passed on to us so we don’t want them either. So what did the Commerce Department propose?
read moreCloud Computing isn’t Private
“Cloud computing places your data in the hands of companies that neither care about you or your data.” That isn’t a direct quote but rather, the summary by a writer at TechCrunch of an overall feeling about shared computing data and it’s impact on privacy. If your company is considering cloud computing, you might want to consider this:
1. Will your cloud provider take your side or the government’s if federal agents come knocking and asking for your data?
2. Who is really in control of the security and privacy of your data on the cloud?
3. Can your disaster recovery and business continuity plans provide concrete, predictable results when you have to restore or recover cloud systems? Can you accurately predict the downtime and thus, loss to your company?
read moreWhat the FTC Proposal Means to You, the Consumer
As many of you probably know by now, the first of the two promised government reports on consumer privacy is out. This one, prepared by the FTC, aims its message directly at industry but has its eye set on protecting the consumer’s interests. The other report, due shortly from the commerce department, will most likely be aligned more towards protecting the interests of industry.
The FTC report is 122 pages, mostly filled with details and background. So what did the FTC say? In summary, three things:
- Companies should be more privacy-conscious throughout their operations
- It should be easier for consumers to understand and exercise their privacy rights
- There should be greater transparency in how companies collect, use and make your personal information available.
My Privacy is More Important than Your Privacy
Consumers are spending more and more time protecting their privacy by locking down their social networking access to the outside world. Yet they quite often adopt a “my privacy is more important than your privacy” attitude when they decide to share that embarrassing photograph of you from the office holiday party. Once they share the image to their friends, it falls into the privacy settings of all of those people. And if one of them decides it can go viral, you can end up in the reputation toilet. Here are a few scenarios that actually happened on the web where the victim was completely helpless.
A young girl was chatting with her friends about the upcoming prom. They were trying to arrange a limo to take a group of about 30 kids to the event and were discussing how to pay for it. Our young girl said something along the lines of, “I can pay most of it because my dad just got a new job. He hates his boss but he says it pays better than his last job so I’m sure we can afford it.” One of the kids in the conversation said something to his parents and it turns out they knew someone who worked for the same company as the first young girl’s dad and before long, the first young girl’s dad was being invited into his boss’s office for a chat. What started as a seemingly innocuous comment may have cost her dad his job.
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