Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!looking!brad From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Lotus Market Place Message-ID: <1990Nov21.054734.10332@looking.on.ca> Date: 21 Nov 90 05:47:34 GMT References: <48683@cornell.UUCP> Distribution: comp.org.eff.talk Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd. Lines: 28 I think we can safely pass most of the leave-me-alone laws we like. The danger comes if we pass "don't you dare know this about me" laws, except in restricting the government. The database providers *are* going to know all kinds of details about your life. We can make it hard for them, but we can't stop them. Particularly because we *want* some of them to know things about us. What can be done is to pass laws limiting how that information is used for marketing and doing business with a person. Say, for example, that rather than forbidding certain kinds of databases and certain kinds of mergers of existing databases, we forbid certain types of direct marketing based on those databases or mergers, without the explicit permission of the target. They quickly become far less valuable. I also think a lot of societal pressure can be brought to bear. People must protect the rights they already have -- the right not to have false information spread about you, the right to control copying of your own writings, the right of your private affairs and communications to be kept private. Let's be careful in considering what more we need than the above. We may indeed need more, but with luck, not much more. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473