Messaging News - August 2008 - (Page 15) not necessarily tied to an individual. This computer has read articles on travel, this computer has visited car sites, but they do not know who owns the computer.” A challenge of the modern age is the speed at which innovations happen and information is exchanged. Stepping back to look at the larger privacy picture, Ferris observes, “If you look at it from a human level, I think we are changing. In a way we are forced to worry less about things. Things that we used to see as private, we are much more prepared to talk about.” As well as discover with just a few keystrokes and a few well-selected search terms. Has privacy changed so much, or has our access to data removed the barriers? “There has been a quantitative change in the accessibility of information and that is important,” believes Ferris. “I think actually a lot of these technologies which are gnawing away at privacy are a big force for good in ways that you and I may not be so aware of, but we must remember that many members of mankind live far different lives. Consider the hardships of people in Zimbabwe – now I think the flow of information is making it much harder for the regime there to maintain its existence tenably. My gut feel is, I do not feel bad about loss of privacy. Most of us do not have to worry if someone finds out where we live.” It would seem then that the benefits of free flowing information outweigh privacy. To Harris, however, it is the invisible nature of the data gathering that needs to stop, not the actual act of gathering. “For behavioral advertising to operate in a truly privacy-protective manner, data collection needs to be limited, data retention limits should be tied to the original purposes for collecting the data, and opt-out must completely remove consumers from the service.” She thinks that consumers need to be informed about what data is being collected about their Internet activities, and know how the information will be used, whether the information will be shared with others, and what measures are being taken to ensure that any transfer of data remains secure. “They should be presented with this information in a manner that supports making an informed choice, and that choice should be honored persistently over time,” she argues. A New Definition In the end, it boils down to the need for advertisers and enterprises to disclose policies and make any monitoring, and data collection known. In the case of consumers, it is also important that they have control over such activities. “It is not just about PII and the legal stuff that goes around it,” acknowledges Maier. “It is more about user control and user control about their personal information and where they go and what they do. It is also about control over their computer. Strictly speaking, the issues of spam and spyware, or pop ups and adware that people labeled privacy issues, was really about control over your space. It is the intrusion factors. I think that we have really evolved privacy almost full-circle, where years ago, in the early days of the Internet, a lot of the focus on privacy was about your personal information, and don’t get me wrong, that is still really important, but we have gone back full circle to a broader definition of privacy, and it means control over your space.” SJ/TMP FOR YOUR REFERENCE Center for Democracy & Technology www.cdt.org Federal Trade Commission www.ftc.gov Ferris Research www.ferris.com Proofpoint, Inc. www.proofpoint.com TRUSTe www.truste.com http://www.cdt.org http://www.ftc.gov http://www.barracuda.com http://www.ferris.com http://www.proofpoint.com http://www.truste.com
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