At some point, people became convinced that the
Internet was a system more
anonymous than not. They desire certain
services available to them
online, but expect that in order to get those services, they will not have to reveal their
identities to anyone but the
entity providing the service they seek. Predictably, this
contingent of internet users feel threatened by the idea that
corporations and
advertising agencies are
monitoring their activities on the internet and storing that
data. Rather than take actions to
safeguard themselves against this perceived
invasion of their
privacy, groups are beginning to attack what they probably believe is
the source of the problem, the agencies that record "
marketing information" about
individual users. This is a
pointless exercise because, of course, to really
protect oneself anywhere, one must understand the nature of one's
environment. Depending on an environment you have a
limited understanding of to protect you is
counter-intelligent.
A
timely example of this is recent
legal action taken against
DoubleClick, an online
advertising company. A California woman acting "on
behalf of the public" (Anderson, 2000) and several
privacy advocates are
suing DoubleClick for "
unfair and
deceptive business practices." (Anderson, 2000) These suits are both
futile and
naïve. Even if these cases should be decided in favor of the
petitioners and a
legal precedent thus set, we have already seen how difficult it is for the
government to exercise any control over the Internet. Likewise, the government has been unable or unwilling to protect
consumers from traditional marketing
data repositories, junk-mailers,
telemarketers, and so on. Those facts demonstrate something about our
society: very few things we do can be done anonymously. Furthermore, as long as it is in the
financial best interest of businesses to continue this sort of monitoring and
interference, the general public cannot depend on them to respect do not call or do not mail requests, or
the next generation, the "opt-out"
cookie that Double Click offers to persons who do not want to be included in the DoubleClick/
Abacus database (DoubleClick recently merged with Abacus, a company that collects "offline" information such as names, phone numbers, and mailing addresses).
A survey of the
privacy policies of
online companies by the
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) conducted this past
holiday season found that "not a single one of them (
high-traffic websites) fulfilled important elements of
Fair Information Practices investigated in the survey. Fair Information Practices serve as basic guidelines for safeguarding
personal information. Also
alarming was the significant proportion (35 out of 100) of shopping sites that allowed
profile-based advertising networks to operate." (EPIC Alert, 2000) The advertising networks EPIC is talking about are of the pre-DoubleClick/Abacus variety. That is, they track an
Internet user's movements online, but do not link the data from the online world to another set of data about that person collected offline.
The practice mentioned in the EPIC survey is by no means an
uncommon one. Many popular
websites require users to accept some sort of cookie in order to get full functionality from the site. And these cookies already record the sort of information EPIC is upset about, mainly which websites a user visits. Companies claim to do this for the
benefit of customers. DoubleClick's privacy policy, for instance, claims that data they collect is "used for the purpose of
targeting ads and measuring ad effectiveness on behalf of DoubleClick's advertisers and Web publishers who specifically request it." Similar privacy statements may sound
non-threatening, but because such agencies are essentially left to monitor themselves with regard to how well they maintain their
users' privacy, there are no guarantees. Even if a
governing body stepped in to ensure that businesses did meet certain privacy standards, enforcement would be
tricky and, except when dealing with larger, more
reputable firms, users'
personal information would likely be no more
secure.
While they may be
annoying, the results of these marketing techniques are essentially
harmless. As our world is increasingly more
connected, we come to function more and more like a
small town in terms of privacy;
information travels faster, and more people and businesses we interact with
virtually "know" us. There are several ways for
concerned parties to address this
potential problem, but it's important to keep in mind that the worst thing marketers are likely to do to us is
spam us into a state of frustration. And if they weren't doing it via the Internet, they'd still be doing it through more
traditional media. While things as potentially
damaging as our
medical records can be freely distributed without
penalty, extra
junk mail seems like a somewhat
petty concern.
Even if you buy into Diane Anderson's (Anderson, 2000)
logic when she claims that, with firms recording everything you do online, you could someday be
refused custody of your child because you had visited a
porn website several years before (apparently profiling cookies have a snowball effect leading to
puritanical societies where
statutes of limitations are unheard of..), you can protect yourself without having to rely on
greedy businesses to do something that means less
financial gain for them. By learning more about the
technology they are using, everyday Internet users can gain the tools they need to protect themselves from virtually all run-of-the-mill threats to their privacy. There is no
compelling reason for people to believe that they should be handed the Internet on a
silver platter. While the web may become increasingly "
user-friendly," no one should make the assumption that when anyone -
evil corporation or curious
hobbyist - has access to another plane of understanding, they won't use that knowledge to ends that all users might not agree with.
For better or for worse, the Internet is
fueled by
capitalism. What was before the sole
domain of
academics has become an empire of
entrepreneurs. Simply translated, that means that greed is everywhere and the average person getting online represents nothing more than a
sales opportunity. Instead of waiting for
fate or
Uncle Sam to come down and protect them from the
hordes of businesspeople, users need to
educate themselves and in doing so reclaim the
anonymity that has become so precious in a networked world.
Bibliography
Anderson, Diane, "The
Trouble with DoubleClick".
The Industry Standard, January 28, 2000.
Electronic Privacy Information Center, "
EPIC Releases Survey of
Online Privacy Policies".
EPIC Alert, January 12, 2000.