First, let’s start with the premise that at the moment you were assigned a social-security number, all privacy rights went to hell. But if that were the extent of it, we’d be lucky. Privacy’s slippery slope is getting steeper and more slippery all the time in the Digital Age.
Contributing to this insidious reality are new technologies, including wireless and the Internet, as well as industry consolidation and federal deregulation. Exploiting the phenomenon is today’s King of the Hill: the marketers. For marketers, data is gold. The gold is being mined in Digital America.
The whereabouts and calling patterns of mobile phone subscribers are becoming less and less of a mystery. That’s good for 911 calling; not so good if position location info is misused. Cookies ensure that Web surfing and each Internet purchase are every digital firm’s business.
Privacy loss can even be as subtle as an identification-coded computer chip. In case you’re wondering, children are not off limits. At least one firm asks kids to log in their names and addresses at its Web site.
Telecom, financial, medical and personal information are out there for the taking. Last week, President Clinton was poised to sign a bill allowing financial institutions to sell securities and life insurance policies.
In the same way that telecom deregulation spurred consolidation and one-stop shopping, so too will banking reform. To make it work, collecting as much customer information as possible for cross-marketing purposes is the key.
That’s why Congress included privacy safeguards in the banking bill, but not enough to satisfy privacy advocates.
The FCC tried to give sanctity to consumer privacy rights mandated in the 1996 telecom act. But a federal appeals court in Denver thought otherwise.
Government is not Big Brother as George Orwell predicted. Digital business-manifested in the New Economy-is. Not only is political sovereignty threatened by digital forces, but now personal privacy is under siege. We’re all in The Truman Show.
There’s nothing inherently nefarious about all this. Effective checks and balances to protect privacy would help. Some of that is happening. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has been a leader in this area.
The Net, and now the wireless Web, are wonderfully rich in the quantity and quality of information available to us wherever we are. The world at our fingertips.
At the same time, digital firms are learning a world of information about us. The information superhighway is a two-way street. Who’s getting the better of the deal? What privacy rights are we giving up, or are we willing to give up, in exchange for Digital Age benefits?
Perhaps it’s the kind of Faustian bargain most of us are willing to accept. But surely it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
