Free Range Internet
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Written By Kate Zimmermann | September 21, 2006 | Share This
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For $59.95, I can buy a record of your:
- current address and phone number
- previous residences and phone numbers up to 10 years
- names, ages and addresses of your relatives, roommates and neighbors
- bankruptcies
- tax liens
- small claims civil judgments
- home value
- property ownership
All courtesy of US Search, a People Search and Background Check company that aggregates personal information from publicly available Internet records. (full disclosure: US Search is a client) In an NPR interview, Steven Viscusi of headhunting firm The Viscusi Group admits, “Human Resource departments are actively pursuing these sites to find out about the questions they can’t legally ask you.” Your favorite books, movies, recently watched TV shows, confessions, activities and anything else that might make its way into a personal profile is “free game” that the “human resources departments cannot overlook objectively.”
When Facebook introduced its ‘News Feed’ of user profiles, Facebookers vehemently objected, calling it a violation of privacy. The Facebook feed pales in comparison, however, to the mountain of data stored by Internet service providers. Search engines, social networks, browsers and online retailers store records of every website you visit, email you write, or document that you upload. Furthermore, that information is legally owned by the company. They can sell that data, release it to the government, or publish it for public access at their discretion. Internet Service providers typically only keep data needed for business purposes (behavioral tracking,fraud prevention, billing disputes, etc), but there are currently no laws in place designating what can and cannot be shared. Thus far, releases of user information have been met with extreme opposition from the public- the best example being the AOL leak earlier this year.
Regardless, a handful of conservatives are pushing laws that would require Internet service providers to retain user data (including e-mails and sites visited) for a minimum period of up to two years. Says Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, “We have to find a way for Internet service providers to retain information for a period of time so we can go back with a legal process to get [child pornographers].” If passed, these anti-porn intiatives would open the debate over data retention to other types of law enforcement. The entertainment industry, for one, is eager to obtain user data to help combat copyright infringement. In a memo posted by Ars Technica, the Creative and Media Business Alliance writes, “The position of the CMBA is that the scope of the proposal should be extended to all criminal offenses.” Critics of the legislation point out the high cost of data retention, its negative effects on user experience and its fundamental violation of privacy. Most fear a situation like China, where the government actively uses private internet records to prosecute civil advocates. Data retention laws have already been passed in the EU, largely in response to the 2004 Madrid train bombings.
The line of what’s “public” is often unclear in cases of deception or accident. Take, for example, the Seattle man who posted a fake explicit ad on Craigslist, and then published all of the responses, including photos, addresses, names, phone numbers, and even IM screen names, to his LiveJournal page. He went on to publicize the prank in Encycolpedia Dramatica and on message boards - the contents of which were later removed by the administrator, but saved in a Yahoo cache (full story on waxy.org). In a lighter instance, a photograph was recently captured on Google Earth of a woman sunbathing topless on her deck.
These cases exemplify that people are still naive to the fact that the internet is a public space. To help spread awareness, numerous services, like US Search, track down personal information in public databases. Others, like Lostinthecrowd.org, disable “cookies” that allow sites to track individual user information. One company, Root, is attempting to capitalize on search data, by giving users the tools to sells their click history as market research. These types of privacy solutions give people a degree of control over their personal information. In the same vein, should users have the right to remove their search histories or email records from online databases? Should browsers come with a warning label, to make people aware that their search history is being recorded?
Many existing online services depend on the ability to track user information. Amazon’s “suggested books” feature, Pandora’s “smart” music player, and other behavioral tools need data to create a customized experience. Search engines especially, need user data to improve their search algorithms and contextual ad programs. Thus, to increase privacy restrictions would compromise the quality of many web-based services. On the other hand, regulations imposing data retention could infringe on our right to privacy. For fear of the consequences of deviating either way, it seems like the only viable option is to remain flexible. And while privacy laws remain ambiguous, at the very least we can depend on Google Earth to increase public awareness of the issue, one nudie photo at a time.
Topics: Legal Issues |