Comments on: Advertising and Privacy: No Right to Control What You Give Away

By: What is “Regulatory Capture”?

What is “Regulatory Capture”? — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 03:06:41 +0000

[...] One of my favorite recurring themes here on TLF is the definitional dispute/clarification. We point out where a term has been used in many different ways and explain the positives and negatives of the various behaviors described by that term. I just did this with privacy. [...]

By: le penne altrui : 541

le penne altrui : 541 — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 07:55:18 +0000

[...] a website. If you give your data away to Google, Google can use them as it sees fit. / taken from Advertising and Privacy: No Right to Control What You Give Away / it was one of the texts Leave a Reply [...]

By: KenMagill

KenMagill — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:42:57 +0000

This debate is missing a much larger point. When two private entities interact with one another, both own the information surrounding that interaction.

For example, if I sell you a car and we both write the details of that transaction down, both I and you own that information.

If I sell 10 cars to 10 people and we all write the details of the transactions down, we all own the information surrounding the transactions in which we took part.

Suddenly, though, as the seller of all 10 cars, I have a database of car buyers that has commercial value. And that database is rightly mine.

If I sell those 10 names to an insurance broker for five bucks a piece, I have violated no one's privacy. I have used information I rightly own for a perfectly legitimate personal gain.

When you visit a Web site, you aren't giving information away, you are engaged in a value-for-value transaction with another private entity that has as much right to the information surrounding that visit as you do.

As a result, the whole privacy debate is based on a massively flawed premise: that people somehow own the information surrounding their interactions with other private entities.

If I buy a generator from Tractor Supply, Tractor Supply is an equal owner of the details of that transaction.

By: AlexHarris

AlexHarris — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:13:58 +0000

I should also clarify that the issue is not who the supposed privacy-violator is, but how she got the data. If a corporation were to wiretap your house or lock you in a cell for refusing to give up your information, that would be just as bad as the government doing those things.

And, indeed, people can - and do - make contracts about how the data will be used before they give them away. That's what privacy policies are all about. Corporations that violate their agreements with their users about how they'll treat their data are rights-violating as well. An appropriate role for government is to provide a remedy (now in the form of civil suits for damages) for those violations. I've been talking about the case where a person gives information away with no prior restrictions on its use, or where the website receiving the information actually follows the agreement, but the user complains and demands government action anyway.

But, Steve, you are right about spam. We should have a conversation about the cyber-libertarian view on it. It's one of those areas, like IP, where libertarians disagree about what counts as "property" and what it means to violate it.

By: Steve R.

Steve R. — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:56:45 +0000

Correct, I am not disputing what you are saying and I understand the focus of your position. You are correct that when you visit a website, you have consented to give up some data. My intent was to note a bigger issue that is lamentably “ignored” in these types of “focused” presentations.

By: AlexHarris

AlexHarris — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:20:44 +0000

Consent, consent, consent!

The spam/unsolicited phone calls issue is entirely different than the one I'm dealing with, targeted ads. Spam is not an invasion of your informational privacy. It does not take information from you. It dumps unwanted messages in your inbox. One can legitimately argue whether or not these are an invasion of your property, in the same way as dumping garbage on your lawn would be. If not, it's hard to see why a denial of service attack would be rights-violating. I tend to lean toward the side that these are rights-violating, because you have not consented to receive just ANY message/phone call, just as you don't consent to receive just ANY visitor into your house or business.

This post is about the data you give away when you visit websites. You decide to visit the website, you have decided to give up the data. You have consented to give away your information, thereby EXERCISING one of the rights you have over it (namely, the right to share it with others). The government does NOT get your consent. The government takes your information, such as by ordering you to give it up or face fines or contempt of court charges and then jail - or just by breaking into your data pipes and taking it directly. It's ridiculous that we lump both of these together as "privacy" concerns and act as if they are the same. If I tell you my medical history, I have no "privacy" complaint that you have it - you have it because I gave it to you!

By: KenMagill

KenMagill — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:42:57 +0000

By: KenMagill

KenMagill — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:42:57 +0000

By: AlexHarris

AlexHarris — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:13:58 +0000

By: Steve R.

Steve R. — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:56:45 +0000

By: AlexHarris

AlexHarris — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:20:44 +0000

By: Steve R.

Steve R. — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 01:42:49 +0000

The right to privacy seldom appears to be clearly articulated. The right to privacy belongs to the recipient not the instigator. In your post, you state "They have a justice-based right (a political moral right) to freedom from government intrusion". I would rephrase this as a right of freedom from both corporate and government intrusion. Please see my post "Misplaced Regulatory Blame II".

When a telemarketer calls you up or your mailbox is full of junk mail these are unwarranted intrusions into your privacy. True, you can hang up and throw the junk mail into the garbageman, but that is not the point. Why should I be inconvenienced for unwanted contact that I did not request? (The default request for any information should be "NO". If the yes box is check, that represents a voluntary commitment to receive solicitations so let the mail fly!)

In terms of targeted advertising, I have no aversion to it. Additionally, if I go out on the internet it is acceptable for advertising to be presented. Even most cookies are acceptable since they facilitate logging into websites. My point is that this we have a schizophrenic attitude towards privacy. If the government invades it, bad. But if a corporation does the very same thing, good?!?!?!?!

Anyway, I see that Adam & Berin will be taking up the privacy issue in their paper "Cyber-Libertarianism: The Case for Real Internet Freedom". I hope that they will recognize that privacy belongs to the recipient not the instigator be it the government or someone else.