FITUG e.V. Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft

FC: Industry studies attack U.S. data collection regulation

------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date sent: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 08:52:08 -0800 To: politech@politechbot.com From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> Subject: FC: Industry studies attack U.S. data collection regulations Send reply to: declan@well.com

"Industry Studies Attack Web-Privacy Laws" Wall Street Journal (03/13/01) P. B6; Bridis, Ted

A new campaign is underway to impress legislators with the dangers online privacy laws pose to businesses. Four industry studies were published yesterday by the Direct Marketing Association, which is working closely with the Online Privacy Alliance--including tech companies such as IBM, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, and AOL Time Warner--to preempt Internet privacy legislation at both the state and federal level. Although observers say any laws are unlikely to be passed this year, businesses in the tech sector are jittery over what they say is a $17 billion threat to the 90 largest financial institutions. According to one of the studies released, the costs of Internet privacy laws would be passed onto consumers in the form of an informal $1 billion information tax. Adding to the concern is companies' worry that sensationalism over privacy infringements on the Web could result in fast-moving laws they would be hard-pressed to stop. Tech companies maintain that the best solution to online privacy problems are new technologies, not new laws. However, the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Marc Rotenberg says the issue is too big and too pressing to ignore. "This is not an issue on the radar screen. It is the radar screen," he says, although he admits that laws dealing with Internet privacy will take some time. Already, some corporate technology interests, such as Intel and Hewlett-Packard, have conceded that moderate Internet privacy regulation would prove beneficial and that some form of legislation is inevitable.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- --- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if it remains intact. To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---

------- End of forwarded message -------

Zurück