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Self-Regulation Needed To Ensure Privacy (03/13/98, 7:07 p.m. ET) By Malcolm Maclachlan, TechWeb Spring Internet World '98 was the largest conference ever to sponsor an entire day of events about Internet privacy, but for privacy advocates, it was a dark week. On Thursday, the U.S. Senate Commerce committee passed a bill known as the "Son of the Communications Decency Act," sponsored by Senator Dan Coats (R-Ind.). The bill would impose some of the same sanctions against "indecent" speech online as the CDA, which was thrown out by the Supreme Court last summer. Like the CDA, Coats' bill targets online pornography, but changes the word "indecent" to "harmful to minors" in an attempt to pass judicial muster. Another bill moving through committee would force libraries and schools to use filtering software on all computers hooked up to the Web. In the wake of these events, there was an air of urgency at the meeting of privacy experts on Friday. The time for industry self-regulation has come, urged Lori Fena, chairwoman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "The systems that have worked well have done so because there has been a huge threat of legislation," she said. Besides the pending legislation, there are now rumblings coming from the Commerce Department, presidential technology advisor Ira Magaziner and even the European Union calling for regulation of online content. Privacy concerns must also be addressed by electronic commerce companies, privacy experts said. Tom Catlan, vice president of R&D; at Netcentives, said commerce sites need to build trust with clients by posting their company's information usage policies and by asking for information only when it is necessary. What makes consumers nervous is the impersonal nature of commerce online, said Mark Crumpacker, CEO of the design firm Studio Archtype. He pointed out that although people give out personal information every day when using credit cards, cell phones and grocery shopping cards, the difference is that there is usually some human contact and control in these transactions. For example, Crumpacker said, diners can see the waiter who takes their credit card, which makes it less likely that he or she will steal the number. In fact, existing privacy laws could be applied to the Internet, said Keith Epstein, senior counsel at Pacific Bell Internet Services. For instance, phone and cable companies are limited in what they can do with subscriber information. Fena said the market would also help to determine standards. She used the example of America Online, which was flooded with protests and watched its stock sink after announcing it would sell user information. AOL quickly dropped that idea, she said.
In the age of narrowcasting, it's important to remember that there's "a fine line between good service and stalking," said Tara Lemmey, chairwoman of online services firm Narrowline. Acceptable guidelines will ultimately be determined by what consumers will stand for, she added.
Coalition Targets Consumers for Encryption Support State Target Indecent Net Speech United States, Europe Look for Common Ground on Speech
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