response to USA Today Article in Money on Microsoft Privacy

Privacy, P3P, and Microsoft

Many who work on privacy probably thought the USA Today misguided and
shallow.  I have argued that you cannot take technology out of
information privacy and you can't take the law (meaning consent of the
governed) out of it either.  Personal information privacy is a unique
twinning of technology and the law.  Technology, really just the
computer, can't be taken out of personal privacy because it will always
surprise in ways it can be used and misused.  On the law, Thomas
Jefferson noted that once one person has access to information from one
other person, the secret is now public and only the law can protect the
originating person's interest in the knowledge.  This is the basis we
have in the constitution for all copyright and patent law today.  In
Europe, devices such as Microsoft has introduced on its browser are
known as "Privacy Enhancing Technologies" (PETs) because they only
enhance.  They cannot insure since, as Jefferson pointed out, only the
law can do that on knowledge disclosed to another person.  The Europeans
also use the term "Privacy Invasive Technologies" (PITs) as the
opposite.  PETs are good.  PITs are bad.  It would be nice if USA Today
heard the word "enhancing" and stopped thinking "solving".  The law
solves.

The World Wide Web consortium's P3P initiative has many players
corporate and academic, in many countries.  Microsoft has been more of
an observer and so cannot take anywhere near full blame or credit for
the implementation of this PET.  P3P tools are appearing in many places
and, on the "cup is half full" side, over 15% of web sites do support
P3P compact policies after only a few months of introduction of IE6.0. 
P3P is the beginning of what promise to be very usable and manageable
PETs.  Many of us have criticisms of P3P but we are actively
participating in the process of creating PETs that work for all
parties.  I would hope Amazon and eBay don't continue to stay on the
sidelines and understand the process is indeed collaborative with the
earned trust of the consumer as the ultimate goal.

Regards, 
Robert Thibadeau, Ph.D.
Principal Research Scientist
http://www.internetlab.ri.cmu.edu  
School of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University
Also
Invited Expert, P3P/APPEL Working Group, www.w3.org/p3p.

Received on Monday, 3 December 2001 06:26:41 UTC