For the US federal government, privacy rights on the Internet -- or more precisely, control of personal information -- is a thorny issue.
Like many aspects of tech policy, Washington looks at this issue through the prism of standing law, inherited from a time when the ability and motivation to harvest, store, examine, and sell this kind of information was very different. Current laws about privacy were driven by concerns raised by telephone and direct-mail solicitors, where opt-outs and “do not call lists” were big political winners.
And like many current controversies around the Internet, the issue of personal information control pits companies with different business models against each other. Most firms making money off of Internet advertising (which includes virtually all of the free Internet) want to be able to use personal information the better to monetize eyeballs; those who don’t rely on advertising have a continuum of interests depending on what they sell. The firms that sell subscription services can afford to be privacy hawks, but those that depend on repeat sales of small-ticket items, as Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) does, are dying for as much information about potential buyers as they can get.
The content of the hearing was much more general than that of the first hearing in the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet last April, at which I was a witness. The House Subcommittee wanted to understand the technologies that collect personal information (such as tracking cookies, Deep Packet Inspection, and GPS reports) while the Senate Committee was more concerned with retention and sale of the information once it’s been gathered.
The Senate’s emphasis is consistent with some of the testimony I gave to the House, but not all of it.
We have technologies that permit all Web activity to be tracked at both the browser end of the connection and at the server end. We have business models in which users, knowingly or otherwise, routinely barter personal information for “free” access to information services, and we have a culture of “publicness” in which people willingly share personal information with others in order to expand their social circles for all the obvious reasons. You can’t find the gadget you want to buy around the corner from where you are or the employer you want to hook up with if you don’t share the fact that you’re looking for it, as we all know.
Sharing becomes interesting after these transactions are over, of course. Is Amazon permitted to build a dossier of your entire history of product research, buying, reviewing, and returns? If they are, what protections do they need to put in place in order to prevent your dossier from leaking into the hands of less scrupulous people, and what conditions should limit their ability to sell this information to third parties or use it to target ads to you?
The position that seems to be emerging from the Senate -- which is quite different from the House’s point of view -- is to sharply limit the use of personal information in the sale of ads. Ad placement based on consumer interests (so-called "behavioral targeting") is an important enabler of high-cost information services; it’s probably the only business model with a hope of keeping investigative journalism viable and is a key enabler of the “long tail” of the free Internet. Congress would do well to allow advertising-dependent business models to grow, as the ITIF has argued.
One desired outcome that may emerge from Congress (or more likely, from self-regulation) is an insistence on clarity around the ownership of data uploaded to media-sharing sites like Flickr and Facebook. One of the most important elements of the personal information issue that gets insufficient attention is how our willingness to share personal information changes as we get older, after we’ve found the new job, or when we’re in a relationship. Users should be able to take down media and other information they’ve uploaded when they no longer wish to share it. This is a good current practice that should continue.
It’s easy to dismiss privacy as a 20th century concern that’s nothing more than a speed bump on today’s networks; but basic standards of personal control will go a long way toward assuaging the fears that keep a quarter of Americans off the Internet. It’s therefore in everyone’s interest for Congress to move ahead with a progressive, 21st century notion of privacy that allows new business models to develop, free services to be supported, and users to maintain basic control over the information they want to share with their friends.
— Richard Bennett is an ITIF Senior Research Fellow specializing in broadband networking and Internet policy.
Privacy on the Internet is indeed a tricky issue (though I just assume there is none and work from there) but I do see the thorny issues.
However, I find the Amazon example a stretch. "Is Amazon permitted to build a dossier of your entire history of product research, buying, reviewing, and returns?"
What Amazon does is really nothing new. The folks at the deli near my office have keenly observed me by an "everything bagel with cream cheese" for several hundred days. They now see me coming and they start slicing and toasting before I even say good morning. Many a store or restaurant owner keeps records on what their customers purchase. This is nothing new.
If you compare this to the telphone where there is a national opt out list, any company with which you have an existing business relationship gets an automatic bye from the do not call list.
Tracking cookies, ISPs selling data on what sites people visit - all privacy issues. But the company I buy from kind of has to know what I bought.
Do we feel the same way if we share our habits and preferences but not our name and address, than if we share everything?
Marketers want to know what a 26yr old single male person likes... I'm fine with giving out that information... I'm just not comfortable about them knowing that I like that, and that I'm this way or another and to top it off, they can find me @ 23rd E St or mrroques@ie.com
The Internet has never offered any meaningful privacy. When I went to Washington to testify at the hearing in the House, I ran into the author of RFC 1 at the airport and asked him what he made of Internet privacy. He reminded me of Scott McNealy's statement to the effect that there is not really any privacy on the Internet. In general, this is alright, but I do worry about the growing dossiers. The databases of personal information need to be well secured, and they should age-out after 6 months to a year.
Government surveillance is difficult question, because I want the government to be able to track down terrorists and other criminals, but I also want them to leave me alone.
Does it bother you that advertisers are learning so much about us, Richard? Or that the government may be looking to amass its own databases, despite the Senate's apparent position?
Thanks for linking to the WSJ's article on [x+1]. The Internet has never been a secure, anonymous, or private system, and this isn't altogether a bad thing. I'd much rather get a small number of personalized ads that the plethora of non-relevent ones I still get today.
We're seeing early efforts at personalization now, and some are more effective than others. After shopping for posters a while back, I got ads for a week for one of the posters I had looked at, but unfortunately they were shown to me after I had already made my purchase. So advertisers don't quite know enough about us yet to be fully helpful.
That's an interesting way to put it Cjon316. I've heard web post compared to post cards -- the content is not really protected from the prying eyes of people other than the recipient.
I found the Amazon reference in the original post interesting. In fact, it appears to me, that Amazon does keep a record of customer's purchases and searches. It is on that basis that certain recommendations pop up. As it also serves as a portal to other onine retailers, it may well share that information with them.
"One of the most important elements of the personal information issue that gets insufficient attention is how our willingness to share personal information changes as we get older, after we’ve found the new job, or when we’re in a relationship."
I agree that it would be a great service, and policy for a service like twitter, facebook, flickr et al to be able to remove the content at will. But the problem lies with how easy it is to disseminate digital information and propogate it through all types of channels both legitimate and not.
So I can remove the original announcement off the corkboard in the hallway, but not the untold photocopies which were made of the flyer which was stapled there.
This is not something that can be reasonably mandated by a governing body, nearly as well as self governance, which is consistently argued ineffective.
Glad the US Senate is diving into this, it will be interesting the debates and mandates that come from the dive, well intentioned as they might be. Also of interest are the unintended consequences which will eventually stem from these mandates.
I can't help thinking that while the wheels of government turn slowly if surely, our private data is being mined in ways many of us never imagined. A handful of companies are already way ahead of the law on this one. The barn door is open; the horses have bolted. Getting 'em back will be challenging.
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