By Ken Garen, CPA
We have reached a critical juncture in Internet privacy and how the Internet will continue to evolve globally. The battle is raging between those who wish to control what occurs on the Internet including privacy, and those that want no regulatory control in place.
Today in the United States, this debate is playing out in the form of new regulations from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) which will be implemented soon, which could lead to the "delisting" (removal) of information. The essential questions when any powerful agency such as the FCC starts regulating “good versus bad” information are 1) who is really deciding what qualifies as good or bad information, and 2) what political positions influence Internet privacy decisions being made?
In this battle, the legal concept of due process is also very important, as the rights of those who view or post information on the Internet are impacted without any court hearing.
The United States government has started engaging in unilateral actions without any advance notice. On Friday April 15, 2011 (Black Friday) the Internet poker players woke up to find that literally overnight their access to the three most popular sites had been shut down. Similarly, several times during the last few years the United States Justice Department has summarily shut down Internet sites charged with engaging in piracy of copyrighted movies, music or merchandise. All of this action took place without any court overseeing this government activity.
Two sides of the “privacy versus regulatory control” equation
On one side, supporters of government regulation want to enact laws to protect privacy and control the sharing of information via the Internet. The elephant in the room remains whether the world should follow the lead of China, Iran and other tyrannical powers where the government strictly regulates what their people can view and have access to. This begs the question of whether the world should allow the Internet to deliver the free-flow of information globally, as we have allowed in the United States and in most free societies among Western countries.
On the other side of this equation are the creators of the Internet and many notable organizations who oppose the regulatory control of information sharing. Those who reside on this side of the equation value the Internet for reasons including the collection of users’ data. However, whether or not data collected by these entities is protected remains an issue of great contention. Powerhouse organizations like Google and Facebook have been caught red-handed infringing on users privacy and have no qualms about mining users Internet surfing habits for profit.
Is there really nowhere to run and nowhere hide?
Similarly, Facebook is notorious for unauthorized photo tagging and data privacy infringement behavior. For example, they have been caught taking previously posted private photos on another website and making them public on Facebook - without the user's knowledge or consent. Privacy advocates are also fuming over Facebook’s unilateral opt-in approach without informing users of such. Facebook requires users to perform complicated steps to opt-out of a feature, versus opt-in.
Facebook users will notice Facebook’s new facial recognition technology when photos are being uploaded. Facebook's facial recognition technology scours the Facebook database and suggests names of people on the user's uploaded photos, not giving the user the opportunity to “opt-in” to whether or not they wish to be identified. Because of this, retaining one's privacy on Facebook is extremely difficult. Users must take a series of archaic steps to protect themselves from allowing Facebook to pirate whatever information they deem they want to sell and profit from. Read about
Facebook’s new facial recognition technology for more information on their opt-out versus opt-in behavior.
Additional recent egregious examples of Facebook’s horrible corporate behavior includes, 1) their admission of “bugs” in their newest offering, which tracked users without their permission, even when users were logged off of Facebook, and 2) users' accounts being automatically linked to each user’s Google Picasa photographs, ignoring privacy settings set up on Google by the Picasa users. Photos placed on Google Picasa and marked as “private” instantly became public on Facebook without any warning to Facebook users. This action caused major problems for people who thought their private Google Picasa photos would remain private.
Sadly, organizations like Facebook and Google are becoming more brazen about exposing users’ information for profit. Consider how some discuss users' privacy, such as
Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg who says “The age of privacy is over”, and
Eric Schmidt, former CEO and current Executive Chairman with Google, who made a habit of telling the world how Google intended on infringing on users privacy. The often quoted Schmidt, making statements such as, “You have no privacy, get over it!” displays an arrogant mindset that is quite different from the way most people operate. Most assume what they do is private, unless they do it in a public place or if they choose to make whatever they do public.
More from Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman with Google:
1. To the Atlantic: “We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.”
2. At a CNBC interview: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
3. In The Colbert Report: “Just remember when you post something, the computers remember forever.”
4. Interview in Telegraph with Shane Richmond: “You can trust us with your data.”
5. Washington Ideas Forum: “Washington is an incumbent protection machine… The Laws Are Written by Lobbyists.”
6. About Facebook data in Telegraph interview: “We are willing to get it one way or another, with or without deal.”
What is the next step?
Unfortunately, there are no easy or obvious answers. There are a host of questions that will have a profound impact on the privacy of our personal exposure via the Internet.
There should be a movement towards an inter-governmental priority of deciding as a society how our country is going to interact with countries that limit the free-flow of information. For example, when dealing with a restrictive country like the People’s Republic of China, should companies based in the United States be allowed to bend to China’s government’s wishes and follow that country’s rules, limiting access of Chinese citizens to otherwise available information via the Internet? Or, as a condition of engaging in commerce and trade with the U.S., should the U.S. require China’s government to follow the Western world rules on this issue? During the next several years, the answer to these questions will have a significant impact in the way information is published, accessed, and mined over the Internet.
Since the
Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989, it has been assumed by the U.S. Government that more information being available to the citizens of the People’s Republic of China would bring a positive change for the citizens of China. The U.S. government believed this would lead China’s communist government becoming more responsive to the wishes of the people being governed. Obviously this positive transformation has not happened. This is a prime example of why these policies with countries like China need to be re-evaluated.
The United States has reached a crossroads where carefully considered and planned National legislation and International treaties are needed regarding Internet privacy and the free-flow or restriction of information. This legislation would preserve property rights of those posting information on the Internet, offering protection so privacy rights cannot be taken away without due process. Additionally, citizens around the world would unilaterally have access to information via the Internet, without governments dictating randomly what information can or cannot be accessed. This legislation cannot, and should not, be handled by a commission with a political agenda.
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