- From: James Pitkow <pitkow@cc.gatech.edu>
- Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 13:29:29 -0400 (EDT)
- To: connolly@beach.w3.org (Daniel W. Connolly)
- Cc: www-talk@www10.w3.org
Hello, Dan wrote: > Who said that? Not me. I would certainly expect anybody collecting > business cards to write up their policy for access to that data > and make it available. I would probably even mandate that in > the spec. > Well then, this is way cool. The policy that you mention is along the lines of what I want too. The problem is that in the US, no such policy currently exists. Companies are able to gather data and then broker it for whatever purposes they want, without your consent. Certain companies are sensitive to this and enable you to not be put on other mailing lists, etc.; but even then, it's a box at the bottom of the page the default is assumed that you want this. I think it needs to be the other way around. You're privacy is the default and if you feel like relinquishing it, then you give your consent to do so. As it turns out, in many European countries, it is this way. Companies are not able to use data in a manner other than it was initially intended without getting consent. Another interesting thing to ponder is that courts in certain states in the US found that caller id was unconstitutional. Basically, the broadcasting of your number is an invasion of privacy was their ruling. So, in a sense, any information that can uniquely identify you or be used to discriminate for or against you, can fall under this line of thought. Having a default interface that enables business cards to be exchanged without consent or user interaction, may very well be deemed unconstitutional. So, I think we agree that sites can use the information gathered, but when it comes down to exchanging this information, they need to acquire consent or inform the user a priori (and not in a H6 tag). Additionally, information gets broadcasted only upon the user's decision to do so, not by default. Regards, Jim.
Received on Thursday, 20 July 1995 13:29:35 UTC