Online privacy tool:Primedius:- Anonymous Web Surfing - History Cleaner - Cookie Cleaner www.primedius.com |
Post 911 changes in law, politics, and psychodynamics have had a profound
impact individual liberty and elevated concerns about privacy. So far
'national security' concerns have overshadowed all other and there is no
agreement on what form privacy should take, legally or functionally. In
every survey, concerns about privacy are front and center but people do not
necessarily know how to reconcile security and privacy. The more pernicious
problem is the pervasive attack of information marketers on personal
information, not how security measures may intrude our privacy. At least,
not in the short run.
What are the known, objective facts? 1-Marketing companies collect, mine, categorize and sell consumer information. This is done at aggregate and individually identifiable level depending on each organization's level of ethics and greed. 2-This is a multi-billion dollar and growing industry. 3- Consumers do not know or understand the collection and sales process. They generally believe websites use this information to customize and enhance users' web experience. 4- Consumers do not know their information has any value or that revealing information about them is traded for profit. Once aware, they will demand permission based use and/or payment. 5- Growth of credit transactions online has been stunted because of consumer concerns about exposure, abuse, misuse and theft. 6-Theft of Identity has grown exponentially into numbers close to or exceeding one million people. Its most prevalent form has been credit card theft and abuse. 7-Any meaningful privacy protection law at state or federal level has been defeated or watered down by lobbies. Although that will be changing soon in California where Senator Jackie Speier is leading a grassroots campaign. 8- Businesses have sold the idea of information collection as a legitimate right for business and the price for free Internet. 9- Security is both an enabler and disabler of privacy 10- Personal information is personal property and merits similar protections as any real and tangible asset. 11-If you want privacy you need to protect it. 12-Privacy protection, like security, is a process first and technology second while the predominant approach works in reverse. 13-Consumer advocacy groups seem to understand or care only about Civil liberty aspects of privacy as a completely disconnected notion from its economic reality and effect. 14- Speedy passage of Patriot act and similar legislation has created a real concern for potential abuse and a constitutional concern. Abuse will happen because the ability to pervasively and secretly intrude on anyone's privacy is now legal and in the context of national security, limitless and without sufficient accountability. The concern over privacy as a component of human rights and freedom is not new but has been exacerbated in the connected digital world. The fear of intrusion and 'big brother' in networked society is well placed and not sign of paranoia but well educated concern. What is now digitally and inferentially 'knowable' about an individual and the accuracy of that knowledge goes into the very core of what is ethical and 'proper' in the human context. Furthermore, the knowable may extend beyond the knowledge, consent and control of the individual (historical trends used for predictive analyses) or even his/her 'mindset' or 'self awareness'. The view that one may be analyzed and studied from his/her digital footprint and then be 'analyzed', manipulated, and taken advantage of (politically, commercially or otherwise), is not so sinister and has a very real basis in the existing capabilities and practices. Even those who are 'comfortable', with the technology and its application, are well advised to exercise caution. Perhaps it will be useful to view privacy from a financial and a non-financial aspect. If a bedroom is peeped by someone or for someone while one in engaged with his/her partner there is no financial damage (at least, not directly or immediately). If one learns about the peep, it will certainly be less than comfortable, considered intrusive and depending on the individual may be considered violating, hurtful.pick an adjective. When a credit history, work, purchasing behavior are peeked into without, knowledge, consent or authorization one may also feel violated, hurt, abused.. While the adjectives and feelings maybe similar they are not identical nor have they similar implications. The first case is a non-financial intrusion with possible social and financial repercussions. The second is a financial intrusion with distinct utilities and potential social repercussions. Without the knowledge of the specifics of each intrusion and depth of exposure, the extent of damage or abuse may never be known or understood. The light at the end of the tunnel may be an oncoming bullet train. With exceeding ability to extrapolate from the violation of the first kind into the second and vice versa, the boundary of financial and non-financial is increasingly blurred. Our financial and constitutional rights are more intertwined than we recognize or are willing to accept. Once a digitally accurate composite of an individual is established (through online and offline tracking, database merges), analyses and prediction of its behavior, preferences, and developing tendencies are not particularly difficult, given the existing (and in use) technologies. An under recognized phenomenon of the technology boom and the information age is the use of data as raw material to help create products; or as precursor to making and selling of products. The accepted market economy that drives this has dubious track record and legitimacy at best. Many technologies have been developed or are being developed that exist only because there is 'free' data to use as raw material. These exceedingly innovative products will have little business justification without the free raw material. The early days of industrial age was marked by abuse of basic human rights or any labor considerations because industrialists were profiting from labor that was free or cheap, plentiful and regulatory matters were not a concern. The early days of digital age have shown similar patterns. There is not a common idea about how personal data should be processed (gathered, filtered, valued and disseminated) and the appropriate ethical and/or regulatory framework is still undefined. Frontier mentality, therefore, rules. It has become an almost universally accepted concept that free data powers 'free' internet and makes it accessible to masses; an almost logical but false concept. As Andy Grove put it in a Capitol Hill testimony in fall of 2000, the information on the net is as valuable as the cash in my pocket. Free Internet is not free; it is paid for by data collected from the user (as well as all the VCs that showered half baked ideas with funding during the bubble years). It is at best an unequal exchange, as the provider knows and designs what he is giving for 'free' or getting in return. The user, however, does not quite know what he is giving and how it is used despite all the privacy statements, Logos and trademarked hype. Of course, with the dot COM demise even that theory does not hold as those still standing have sobered up and started to charge for anything they provide. Further reality induced market adjustments will show that people will pay only when there is a clear, tangible service or product they get. Ad based business models will go down the tubes (if they haven't already) unless tangible benefits to consumers and some sort of willingness on their part to play along is built into the interaction. The item of highest value is consumer/individual attention and willingness. Businesses at large will come to this realization soon enough. Reality is hitting home that novelty of the Internet is wearing thin, people have wised up to the privacy concerns and freebees to entice them are few and far in between. Another almost logical but false theory is, to paraphrase a famous if not wise person, 'in the digital age there will be no privacy, get over it'. This is quite a convenient and almost logical, if not purely self-serving theory. That I am willing to forego my privacy and selfhood to get my favorite entertainment (it is automatically delivered to me on cable before I know I want it), is a highly profitable dream some have, which may even be fulfilled by the less informed part of society. It is nonetheless, extremely presumptuous and counter to long-standing principles and rights; at least in some of the more advanced cultures. For a manufacturing operation to perform, it must enjoy great design and engineering, optimized processes, quality raw materials and production, efficient utilization and so on. While the factory may not worry about all detail of its Polyethylene source, choosing a supplier that pollutes and may get in trouble with EPA could be costly even if quality and price are competitive. If the supplier gets exposure to EPA and media attention follows, then not only the supply is at risk but the reputation of the factory, its management and any brands involved are at risk. While the digital model is not identical, the fundamentals have not changed. A user of personal information and its derivatives that does not pay attention to sources, means and context and ethics of collection, and ultimate usage, will likely pay a price. Internet needs to be free only to the extent that any other great technologies and products are or will become free because a society has chosen to do so, for whatever reason. Or when the world has reached the level of maturity to understand and conduct itself in terms other than consumerism, economic progress and market economy. Internet is an important technology because of what it may do for our collective efficiency and connectivity, not because it will avail free information to everyone, everywhere. With all the affluence of the 'advanced' nations, providing free food and water to starved and perennially hungry was never an assumed benefit or expectation, nor has it materialized. That utopian thinking ignores realities of human existence, dominant laws of capital, and history. Good information costs money because it requires well-paid experts extracting knowledge and info out of it and creating new utilizations for it. Companies that count on free or 'black' data as raw material supporting much of this creativity and talent. It also requires hyper science that usually comes out of academia, commercial and military research institutions and none of them is supported by companies doing 'free' searches by keyword, collecting info and selling ads or products in the name of mass customization. The pressure from the political/capital markets is too great for charitable end purposes. Our collective humanity and wisdom does not yet support the kind of macro, micro and echo nomic frameworks within which the idea of free access to information may be construed as anything but a disguise for more commercialism. The knowledge of oneself, insight into one's information and what it reveals about them and the presentation of such in a manner of their choice is not only critical to our selfhood, but it also is the glue of society and the ultimate intellectual capital and as such fully protected by applicable laws and protections. More importantly, it is wise to deliberate carefully about changing the very thing that makes us human. The most valuable end product of data is information and its derivative, namely knowledge. The values, efficiencies, products and services created from this raw material are the very essence of information age and the market economy. To argue for free access to this raw material is counter to the very idea of market economy within which information based companies exist The reality of existence of persona (a digital clone of an individual) raises all the same issues and concerns that humans have struggled with over the last few millennia. In the digital world those persona are images of real people. Even with 'diminished expectation of privacy', our persona still need protection because they are us. |
Online privacy tool:Primedius:- Anonymous Web Surfing - History Cleaner - Cookie Cleaner www.primedius.com |
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Online privacy tool:Primedius:- Anonymous Web Surfing - History Cleaner - Cookie Cleaner www.primedius.com |