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New Technologies Reshape The Privacy Debate
Members of the information technology industry seem to agree on one thing — the privacy issue is a potent one.
With dozens of bills introduced in Congress, and hundreds in state legislatures, Internet businesses have spent the past six months warily re-examining their positions in the debate. Many firms are considering modifications to their long-standing opposition to privacy legislation — a position that has been supported by the Clinton administration — while also debating whether they should simply focus on working for the best legislation possible.
Many privacy-focused Web businesses and consultants are converging on a position that favors limited legislation mandating notice of a company's privacy policy as well as offering consumers a choice to opt-out of having their data used for marketing or other business purposes. Such consensus was evident at last week's Global Privacy Summit in Washington that gathered an impressive array of businesses keen to make privacy an issue.
But this new agenda arrives as a panoply of new privacy tools — many built by the same companies arguing for privacy laws — make it possible for consumers to surf the Web, shop online and send e-mail completely anonymously.
'A Totalitarian State with No Privacy at All'
That paradox was highlighted in a business-to-consumer panel discussion last Thursday. Fred Davis, founder and CEO of Lumeria, spoke witheringly about mainstream Web businesses' lack of concern for privacy.
"I saw the Internet on its way to becoming a totalitarian police state with no privacy at all," said Davis, whose company is one of the leading edge "infomediaries," or intermediaries that aim to protect consumers privacy.
The technology allows users who sign on to Lumeria's service to anonymously surf the Web. When they find a deal they are interested in, Lumeria can provide personalized information sought by the Web merchant without ever having to reveal their true identity. The company also hopes to aggregate customers' complaints about telemarketing calls and make money by suing violators, he said.
"Eighty percent of business plans include revenue for selling the data they collect from customers. When I read privacy policies, I am shocked by the number that don't give you any privacy, and the consumer, up until now, has been powerless," Davis said.
In such an environment, Davis said he believes that "regulation is inevitable." But, almost in the next breath, he added "our technology drops a neutron bomb on today's profiling," which could eliminate the need for mandatory rules about notice and choice.
Regulation As A Fallback Position
Speaking on the same panel as Davis, Bennett Todd, systems and security analyst at security consultant Oven Digital, said that "regulation gives you a fall-back resource when systems fail." He then pointed out that an increasing number of companies are designing products and services in which businesses benefit when they preserve rather than violate consumer privacy.
"Privacy is moving from a threat or worry, to a profit center and a way to obtain the loyalty" of customers by involving them in the decision-making process about what happens with their personal information, and potentially "offering them a cut of the profits," Todd said.
Persona, another infomediary that used to go by the name of PrivaSeek, allows users to download software programs that screen their identity from sites they shop on, and which helps them aggregate auction site searches and comparison shop. "The right to control personal information is an inherent property right of the person," said Persona Chief Privacy and Technology Officer Steven Lucas.
Other companies also are offering anonymous browsing and purchasing capabilities similarly premised on the idea that technology can protect users' privacy. Last week, IPrivacy, a New York startup that offers the ability to shop online and has the goods delivered to a home without having to reveal a physical address to the shipper, announced a deal in which the U.S. Postal Service would provide the delivery.
Also last week, InvisiME announced software that tracks down who is sending users unsolicited e-mail and cuts them off. Speaking at the summit, company President Guy Wolcott said his company offers a technology that permits its users to opt-out of junk mail by "hitting the undo key at any time in the future."
Earlier this month, American Express announced an alliance with the San Jose, CA-based Privada to offer its customers software permitting them to anonymously surf the Web and make purchases. But unlike some of the officials at the summit, Privada executives were skeptical of legislation. Speaking at the conference, Glee Harrah Cada, Privada's vice president of global public policy, said that technology would do a better job at protecting users' privacy than "a one-size-fits-all law protecting privacy."
'If Government Does It, It is Going to Get Screwed Up'
Although proposing legislation seems to come naturally to many companies whose livelihood is privacy — including the Privacy Council, the business group that sponsored the conference — central sectors of the broader technology community do not agree.
Recounting the failure of the government to manage the delivery of airmail when it took over that task during World War II, Information Technology Association of America CEO Harris Miller said that many industry and government pundits say that "it is time to start regulating privacy on the Internet, because we know how to do that."
But Miller added that such a move would be a grave mistake. "My message today is don't even think about it. Because if government does it, it is going to get screwed up, and screwed up badly."
"We know that consumers want privacy protection, but anyone doing business on the Internet is developing meaningful self-regulation," he said. And focusing on improving business privacy should not inevitably dwell on "getting some law passed. The story of how far we have come in protecting privacy on the Internet is remarkably positive story."
 | - by Drew Clark |
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