Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!news.cs.indiana.edu!maytag!looking!brad From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Lotus Marketplace Keywords: CD-Rom consumer database,privacy Message-ID: <1990Nov23.201651.980@looking.on.ca> Date: 23 Nov 90 20:16:51 GMT References: <1990Nov18.224340.3041@agate.berkeley.edu> <48514@cornell.UUCP> <4960@rsiatl.UUCP> <17478@shlump.nac.dec.com> <1990Nov22.081955.4127@looking.on.ca> <1990Nov23.133632.15712@com50.c2s.mn.org> Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd. Lines: 26 Somebody just brought up a good point in comp.society.futures on this same issue. You can ban databases all you want, but you will never be able to stop somebody in (purely as an example) Taiwan from collecting a database of "really neat private facts about U.S. citizens." Most countries will be primarily concerned with protecting their own citizens, and will not pass laws prohibiting databases on foreigners for some time, if ever. And unless you have telephone police, you can't stop people from opening connections to query databases in foreign countries, even foreign countries that don't sign the "database privacy treaty." So the hard truth is that you can never stop these databases from being collected and formed, and even sold in other countries. The best we can do, if we want to, is regulate how they are used. Which means that we don't regulate what you can store on your own computer at all -- which I like, but rather what you do with it after you take it off. Perhaps accepting the goldfish bowl is the only answer. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473