Gates to Privacy Rescue? Riiight!
Tim May
tcmay at got.net
Fri Dec 8 10:52:19 PST 2000
[cryptography at c2.net removed from the distribution list. They claimed
not to want any politics discussion, and they are a closed list, so
why is political discussion going to it?]
At 11:50 AM -0500 12/8/00, Adam Shostack wrote:
>On Fri, Dec 08, 2000 at 09:07:38AM -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
>|
>| At 8:30 AM -0500 on 12/8/00, BNA Highlights wrote:
>|
>|
>| > THOUGH TECHNOLOGY MIGHT HELP PRIVACY
>| > A meeting of business leaders in Redmond, Washington led to
>| > a frank debate over the insufficiency of North American
>| > action on consumer privacy and the potential for technology
>| > to play a key role in protecting such privacy. For example,
>| > Bill Gates announced that the next version of IE would
>| > better allow consumers to ascertain Web site privacy
>| > policies.
>| > http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/08/technology/08SECU.html
>
>http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/zd/20001207/tc/forrester_exec_injects_security_summit_with_harsh_truths_1.html
>
>REDMOND, Wash. -- Just a few hours after Bill Gates opened Microsoft
>Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) SafeNet 2000 security summit here
>Thursday on an optimistic note, Forrester Research Inc.'s (Nasdaq:FORR
>- news) John McCarthy blew it all up.
I read the article (thanks for the URL).
Nothing new, and, in fact, several of the old chestnuts about why
regulation is needed.
The author also mentions that consumers dislike (so?) tracking of
their purchases...and then in the next paragraphs cites the Firestone
tire recall as an example of better policy than most Web sites have
(or something like this...I re-read his analogy several times and
still wasn't sure what his claim was). But the irony of juxtaposing
Firestone and "customers dislike tracking" is delicious indeed! It is
the existence of customer records--generally voluntarily provided by
the customer--that allowed Firestone and Ford to contact hundreds of
thousands of Explorer owners.
I wonder if the author appreciates the irony here?
All of this folderol about laws being needed to control privacy must
be fought at every stage.
--Tim May
--
(This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the
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