The Tangled Tale of Personal Privacy

Two stories on the same day in The Washington Post show the extreme pressure points on maintaining personal privacy. 

One describes U.S. government efforts to protect against potentially devastating international cyber attacks; the other points out user frustration with privacy policies by digital giants such as Google.

A story headlined, "White House, NSA weigh cybersecurity, personal privacy," talks about legislation to allow continuous, routine surveillance of civilian Internet activity.

Users won’t be able to opt out. If they don’t like the change, Google has said, they can avoid signing into their accounts or stop using Google products altogether, 

That’s easier said than done, experts say in the other Post story noted. For more than 350 million people using Gmail around the world, moving to a new e-mail program is perhaps more inconvenient than changing a mailing address or a bank account.

"Google unified privacy settings unsettle users" traces the concerns of users worried about the accumulation of personal data based on their searches, email content and downloaded videos,' the article says.

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Euro-Style Online Privacy Protection

Update on Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 1:00PM by CFM team

Privacy Rules Urged on Supercookies

September 27, 2011 –A bipartisan House privacy caucus has urged the Federal Trade Commission to look into the use of "supercookies" by websites such as Hulu.com and MSN.com.

Congressmen Ed Markey, (D-Mass) and Joe Barton (R-Texas), who co-chair the privacy caucus, told the FTC they believe supercookies, which recreate online user's profile information even after the user has deleted traditional cookies, may constitute an unfair and deceptive trade practice. Barton said, "I think supercookies should be outlawed because their existence eats away at consumer choice and privacy." Concern about supercookies was fueled by findings from research conducted at Standard University and the University of California, Berkeley, and reported recently by the Wall Street Journal.

—End Update—

Concern is growing over online privacy, but don't expect Congress to import Euro-style, comprehensive privacy regulation.A U.S. House Energy and Commerce subcommittee is examining Europe's comprehensive approach to privacy protection, but some legal experts doubt whether Euro-style privacy regulation could win support in the United States.

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