y.Concern about privacy was around long before the Net and Web. The New York Police Department was tapping phones within a decade or two of Bells first call. Party lines and operators were notorious for eavesdropping. More recently the widespread use of credit cards and the development of credit bureaus have raised serious concerns about control over personal information. It is reasonable to ask is anything really new?I believe the answer is yes, that the explosion of interconnected digital networks makes a significant difference in the economics and feasibility of using private information. More of what we do is (or can be) input in to a computer system than ever before: debit card purchases and ATM withdrawals; phone calls; the location of your cell phone; supermarket purchases; where your Web browser is pointing; where you are when you fill your car with gas; the toll booth you just passed through; and the extensive information you provided when applying for insurance, a new car or a mortgage on the Web.As important, the cost of acquiring, storing, sorting, analyzing, mining, transmitting and exchanging information is falling dramatically. Most important is the inter-operability or interconnectivity. We live in a world of decentralized but interconnected computer networks. Once entered digitally, personal information potentially is available to anyone connected to the net, regardless of where it resides. The distinction between government or public and private data is becoming meaningless in a world of distributed networks. Newer data mining techniques allow a vast amount of information about any of us to be collected and analyzed by a wide variety of end users. It is fair to surmise that the Net is inherently invasive; that the gathering of personal information, profiling and targeted marketing, which bring benefits as well as costs, are part and parcel of E-Commerce. Cyberspace does not map on geographic space. National and cultura...
