FITUG e.V.
Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft
FITUG e.V.Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft |
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http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,35979,00.html
U.S. Confused About Privacy
by Manny Frishberg
5:00 p.m. Apr. 28, 2000 PDT
SEATTLE -- Differing attitudes and laws covering privacy rights and free speech are generating conflicting rules for governing the Internet in the United States and Europe, making it difficult to come up with a set of global standards to govern the new medium, said a professor addressing a conference on the issue here.
U.S. law places an almost unassailable right to free speech at the core of its constitution, but has only vague protections for privacy rights, said Shalini Venturelli, a professor of International Communications at American University. European constitutions, on the other hand, have strong guarantees of privacy, but give governments considerably more latitude in controlling content, she said.
As a result, Venturelli said, European governments already have found 35 reasons and means for restricting the content allowed on Internet websites. So the U.S. position on Net privacy protections, which Europeans frequently view as entirely too weak, is not going to be easily accepted by a few diplomats or trade negotiators in a forum like the World Trade Organization.
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