Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!nowhere!sking
From: sking@nowhere.uucp (Steven King)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Lotus Marketplace
Message-ID: <1990Nov25.045241.13918@nowhere.uucp>
Date: 25 Nov 90 04:52:41 GMT
Organization: nowhere
Lines: 30


    Here in texas, southwestern bell ( the local phone company ) supplies
 a database ( the white pages ). If you dont want to be in it, they make
 you pay, via a surcharge on your phone. Perhaps lotus might provide the
 same "service".

    The very first visable result of registering nowhere as a uucp site was
 some unsolicited paper mail derived from the information in the map file.
 ( okay, I voluntarily provided that information, but it wasnt being used
 for what I had intended ). 

    A recent issue of WSJ ( I think ) had an article about companies supplying
 "illegal" databases of "bad employment risks" ( ie, individuals with a 
 history of filing workman's compensation claims ) for companies looking to
 hire.

    One could go on and on with a list of minor and not so minor abuses
 already present. However, just to play the devils advocate here...

    The discussion has been assuming that our "right to privacy" is
 self-evident, but what makes this so? After all, many civilized non-western
 cultures do not seem to hold privacy in such high reguard. Indeed, in a
 modern society, is such a "right" appropriate?


-- 
 sking@nowhere			      | better to remain unseen 
..!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!nowhere!sking |    and be thought a fool
				      |       than to post 
				      |          and remove all doubt...