The simmering debate about Internet privacy is starting to resemble certain political battles. Opponents think it stinks and supporters think opponents just don’t understand.
In the health care reform debate opponents of various Democratic proposals reject the euthanasia, socialism and runaway government spending they say are intrinsic to those proposals. Supporters say the opponents are being disingenuous or just don’t get it. The debate about setting a new energy strategy and tackling climate change are similar in character.
The debate about Internet privacy has interesting parallels. An article in the New York Times today cites a study showing that a significant majority of consumers object to online tracking by advertisers. The head of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a trade group that favors voluntary, industry-defined privacy guidelines rather than government regulations, responds by citing a history of anti-marketing bias on the part of the study’s author.
The article quotes the lawyer for the the industry’s self-regulation coalition as saying, “The more people understand the practices and how the data is actually being used, that’s when the concerns disappear.” If only people were smarter about this, they would agree with us.
It’s a technocratic viewpoint that can really irritate outsiders with its failure to acknowledge how the average person perceives complex issues. I have technocrat leanings myself but have learned to try to cultivate sympathy for the views of outsiders. If you don’t, you can’t get very far.
The online media and marketing industries have their work cut out for them in educating the public and shaping opinion on this issue. Now they know how policy wonks feel.
Feel free to weigh in with your thoughts on the debate.
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The privacy discussions of today are in the warm, welcoming environment of a U.S.-centric Internet.
There is constant, inexorable pressure by foreign governments to open up the Internet’s plumbing. Why? Sovereignity, for one. While Iran and China are probably the most “out there” in terms of buying certain software packages that make it easier for them to portray their, ah, unique perspective via the Internet, their interests to control the message in the name of ‘national security’ are mirrored by just about every government out there.
The things that we think of as “exciting” and leading to “greater autonomy” may actually have a paradoxical, chilling effect. Within a day of the time you probably wrote this post, ICANN chief executive Rod Beckstrom set DNS down an path that separates the Internet as we know it — ruled by English law, driven by the spirit of American entrepreneurism — towards a world where there are multiple masters; where many can say ‘no’ and precious few are in a position to say ‘yes’.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h5F9quEu35trhlSx_4zHYylf-OEQ
Yes, I noted the timing. What kind of changes will a multi-lateral registrar bring, do you think?
In the short term, who knows? But this “colonization” establishes a beachhead from which more nuanced arguments can be made, not all of which will accrue to our benefit.
I am most concerned about what these actions will mean on our ability to enforce attribution issues such as sales tax and IP royalties. I fear a day when the Internet enables a lingua franca other than English, and frictionless commerce obsolesces American led supply chains and by extension, the municipalities that relied on them.