Neal's Notes

The Economist recently had a lively online debate about whether more government action is necessary to protect individuals’ online privacy. Will this result in excessive government regulation and finally bring to reality Orwellian controls over every detail of our private digital lives?

Marc Rotenberg, president/executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, argued that there’s currently no definitive check on private sector data collection. He said companies do post privacy policies on websites and then “do as they wish with the personal information they collect.”

He makes some good points – some new Internet privacy laws and regulations may be necessary to stop what these companies are allegedly doing.

But Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute, postulated that “the Internet is not for couch potatoes. It is not an interactive medium. While Internet users enjoy its offerings, they should be obligated in watching out for themselves.”

I fall into Harper’s camp. The less government intervention/intrusion, the better. And he made a number of cogent arguments.

All major browsers currently allow users to control online tracking – with Internet Explorer and Firefox you simply click on the ‘Privacy’ tab to customize cookie settings – yet few people even take these simple steps to guard their privacy.

Government regulation, Harper argues, “will make consumers worse off than they could be. The better alternative is to get people educated and involved in their own privacy protection.”

To wit, the Electronic Frontier Foundation provides a list of the Top 12 ways to protect your privacy, itemized/condensed as follows:

• Do not reveal personal information inadvertently
• Use cookie management software
• Keep a clean email address
• Don’t reveal personal details to strangers or just-met ‘friends’
• Realize you might be monitored at work, avoid sending highly personal email to mailing lists, and keep sensitive files on your home computer
• Beware of sites offering some sort of reward or price in exchange for your contact information or other personal details
• Do not reply to spammers for any reason
• Be conscious of web security
• Be conscious of home computer security
• Examine privacy policies and seals
• Remember that you decide what information about yourself to reveal, when, why and to whom
• Use encryption

Pretty basic/common sense stuff – if we all put these practices to heart, we’ll keep the government at arm’s length – digitally speaking. Thoughts?