Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!att!emory!rsiatl!jgd
From: jgd@rsiatl.UUCP (John G. DeArmond)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Lotus Marketplace
Keywords: CD-Rom consumer database,privacy
Message-ID: <4960@rsiatl.UUCP>
Date: 17 Nov 90 23:04:54 GMT
References: <1990Nov16.205011.10348@uncecs.edu> <1990Nov17.074534.8751@looking.on.ca> <48514@cornell.UUCP>
Organization: Rapid Deployment Systems, Inc. (making go fast things and things go fast)
Lines: 59

wayner@hermod.cs.cornell.edu (Peter Wayner) writes:

>brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes:

>>This brings up what I feel is one of the most interesting questions of
>>the electronic frontier.

>>We are pulled in two different directions.

>>On one hand, we have deep concern on how the government might regulate
>>our use of computers and what we will do with them -- what information
>>we will collect, what we will share, what we will publish.  We fear a
>>bureaucracy and invasions of our homes by armed goons on strange
>>pretexes.


This problem would seem to me to have a rather simple solution.  Simply
prohibit the storing and using of any personal information in any
database without the explicit  consent of each person regarding each
and every database.  Said permission should required to be sought 
decoupled from any other transaction. Thus, your bank would not be allowed
to sell your name as a condition for obtaining a loan.  Some would say
that this would be too expensive.  Companies already spend big bucks
on mailing lists.  A direct mail of permission postcards would be much
less expensive and much more direct.

While I can sympathize with Peter's appreciation of being stroked by
merchants, I go in exactly the opposite direction.  I value my privacy
to the upmost and to to a lot of trouble to keep my name off of mailing
lists and out of databases.  I should have that right just the same as
Peter has the right to be stroked.

The cases that piss me off the most are the ones for which I have no control.
Things like credit databases or the medical information database that 
the insurance industry keeps so as to more easily deny you coverage.  
We have no effective control over these databases and how they are used.

Peter made the point that one could collect  personal information about
someone simply by looking.  That is true.  However, I believe the 
criteria for regulation should take into account the ease, convenience
and effectiveness of the collection.  Just as I can legally look at
your house from the street and gather some information about your lifestyle,
I CANNOT fly a camera  under a helicoptor and peer into everyone's 
living room in a particular area.  Or at least I should not be allowed
to.  Many denials of rights have happened as a result of technology making
the means available for trivial effort.  For example, before computers,
the IRS could not analyze your lifestyle and impute income (right or wrong)
and tax you on it, despite the fascist leanings of the agency.  Computers
have given them the opporutnity and lowered the risk.  In other words,
before computers, the means was there but it was not effective or convenient.
As with many losses of freedoms, convenience is the conveyance of the devil.

John

-- 
John De Armond, WD4OQC        | "Purveyors of Performance Products 
Rapid Deployment System, Inc. |  to the Trade " (tm)
Marietta, Ga                  | 
{emory,uunet}!rsiatl!jgd      | "Vote early, Vote often"