Google is promoting its “privacy tips” video series. As I’ve noted before, this is good stuff. Over the long haul, education will be much more effective protection for consumers than privacy regulation – and it will have none of the costs of regulation in wasted tax dollars, market-distorting rent-seeking, and regulatory capture.
Conflict of interest warning!: I was a guest of Google at the recent International Association of Privacy Proffessionals dinner. As you weigh the credibility of what I’ve written here, you are welcome – indeed, encouraged – to consider the embarassingly close relationship I have with Google – how I basically survive on the rubber chicken dinners they sneak me once every . . . 40 years. If it appears that I am being too nice to Google, you are welcome to call me out on it. It is much more fun being mean, but it is important to be fair, so I do say nice things when I see good being done. Now that my disclosure is longer than the substantive post, I’m relatively sure that I won’t be regarded as easier than an FTC Commissioner after an Aspen Summit – at least not this time.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.