Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!agate!apple!limbo!taylor
From: timk@meaddata.com (Tim Klein)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Lotus MarketPlace and Consumer Privacy
Message-ID: <1578@limbo.Intuitive.Com>
Date: 4 Jan 91 01:07:48 GMT
Sender: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com
Organization: Mead Data Central, Dayton OH
Lines: 44
Approved: taylor@Limbo.Intuitive.Com

In response to Doug Borchard of Lotus:

I assume you mean that the software provided with the package doesn't
provide options for looking up single names or for printing anything
other than names and addresses.  What if I just don't use your software?
What if I write my own software to access the data on the CD-ROM any way
I please?

Perhaps the data is encrypted.  Big deal.  As another poster has pointed 
out, it's only a matter of time before your protection scheme is broken 
and made available to the unscrupulous public. 

> Privacy Safeguards:  Purchase Process
> 
>      Only sample data included in retail package

What does "sample data" mean in this context?

Your CD-ROMs are just as vulnerable to software piracy as any other
package.  The number of pirated copies of software out there in the big
world is far greater than the number of legitimately purchased copies.
Even if you succeed in limiting your sales to "registered" and
"verified" businesses (whatever that means to you), do you honestly
think your data will not end up in the hands of third parties?

Thank you for providing a means of removing my name from your lists.
It's kind of a nuisance to have to spend my time and postage to do it
though.  Since you're the ones who are going to be making all the money
from my personal data, it seems as if you should have spent *your* time
and postage to ask my permission to put it there in the first place.  I
know you have no legal obligation to do so -- I just think it would have
been a nice thing to do.  Golly, you could have used the same envelope
to verify that your information about me was correct.

Too expensive, you say?  Probably about as expensive as all the
advertising you're going to buy to make that cancellation address known
to the general public.  You are going to take great pains to make that
option known to the general public, aren't you?

While you're at it, maybe you should print the deadline for sending you my
deletion request in time to have my info removed from the first release.
Surely it's not too late, is it?

Timothy Klein