Bollingbroke -- I never said you were wrong. I'm not a legal scholar, but I believe the constitutional protections only apply to over-the-top government snooping.
Your example on yogurt preference is spot-on. I don't believe that anything in the constitution that prevents grocery stores or credit card companies from compiling information about how we spend our money, or prevents a company from offering us free disk space and a free email service in exhange for allowing them to examine our information/data.
I was reluctant to even write a post with the C word. Certainly not a topic I'm familiar with or even that interested in. And now my worst fears realized someone responds and challenges my statements. What to do? I could without causing a ripple just ignore it and move on. But no, I will give a half-hearted response but with the proviso and promise never to bring up the C word again on this forum and leave its use to those who are angry enough to employ it ( it does seem anytime you come across any discussion of the C word there are mostly very angry people involved ) .
Just saying that what you quoted could more easily be applied to the right of the individual to security as you mentioned rather than privacy which are not always the same thing. Let the world know my preference in Greek style yogurt rather than take residence on the shores of some dreary pond in eastern Mass. I think there are many out there protecting some very boring and unimportant details about themselves.
"For some the bottom line is always the Constitution, which contains no express right to privacy."
Generally, I agree, but doesn't the Fourth Amendment guarantee some right of privacy, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause ..."
I make a conscious choice to trade privacy for conveniences. I could go live in a Walden-Pond-like hut in the wilderness and enjoy privacy. I choose to enjoy comfort-controlled spaces, street lights on paved roads, running water, electricity, electronic financial transactions and wireless communications. Some loss of privacy is a consequence.
"Companies have had to create intellectual property protection departments to combat the trolls who spend their time looking for patent holes and litigating for damages."
Brian, intellectual property departments are nothing new. And many of the companies that complain about trolls are actually the ones who engage in the most offensive, troll-like behavior.
Large companies complain loudly about patent trolls, while they themselves engage in predatory patent behavior. Shakespeare hit this issue on the nail when he said, "The lady doth protest too much."
"One of the hidden technological impacts and laws, I believe, relates to patents. Companies have had to create intellectual property protection departments to combat the trolls who spend their time looking for patent holes and litigating for damages."
Why do you refer to is as been 'hidden'? I thought patents are as pervasive and well known as anything in the tech world that you could possibby imagine. As you rightly noted, we know there are folks out there looking to exploit weaknesses in exisiting patents. But don't you think patents laws as they relate to technology have evolve enough to minimize the activities of these trolls?
"That may not be a bad thing, in that I think we are over-lawed as a society, anyway".
It is true that we are over-lawed but what if a larger portion of theselawas no longer applicable considering the changing nature of how we consume information these days? We have had cases in the recent past in which there are no applicable laws to punish the culprits when the crime was committed online.
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Recently, the Obama administration has been of two minds where privacy rights are concerned. On one hand, you have an administration that vowed to veto CISPA and mandated open data for government websites. On the other hand, you have an increasingly out-of-control Department of Justice on a fishing expedition at AP and demanding legislation to let the FBI wiretap private, encrypted communications and levy fines if a company fails to comply.
The apartment and house sharing service, Airbnb, now requires members to verify their identities by demonstrating a presence on the web, and by either scanning a government ID or entering detailed personal details. Other enterprises should take a close look at Airbnb's verification policies.
Facebook advertising is a lightning rod. It seems neither brands nor consumers are 100 percent happy about the social media site's policies, placement, or procedures. But the real controversy about Facebook ads and promotions is over whether they work.
By now, you've most likely heard about the 3D-printed gun that Texas-based Defense Distributed demonstrated last week. But we haven't heard the last about the censorship war that began soon afterward.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Subsidized handsets, rather than locked handsets, should be the focus of regulators. We're not getting good deals, not fostering innovation, and weakening our power as buyers.
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