An Introduction to Online Privacy

In 1999, Al Gore addressed the press at the White House regarding internet privacy and our need for better regulation. In this speech he suggested a "Privacy Bill of Rights" and spoke of the wonders of self-regulation online businesses could achieve if they would adhere to this new Bill.

In essence, Gore was referring to a pre-existing set of fair information practices that have been brought up in many court cases, from the attempt at implementing Safe Harbor to legal discussion about anonymity law. These policies state that:

• users have the right to know when information is being collected about them,
• users have the right to opt out of providing this information,
• users have the right to know how data will be used,
• users have the right to update this data,
• sites can only collect relevant data,
• sites cannot secretly disclose this data to third parties,
• sites must maintain a reasonable level of data security.

The problem with Gore's vision, along with the vision of many current lawmakers in the United States, is that all the privacy legislation in the world will do the user no good if there are not specific and viable ways to enforce the laws.

Currently, the state of online privacy is largely left up to the individual user and the individual website. If a user gives a website her home phone number without checking on its privacy policy, it is her fault if that information is later sold or given to a third party. If a website publishes a privacy policy and fails to follow it, there is little legal precedent to receive monetary or other recompense for the website's actions, provided the privacy breach is ever discovered by the user at all. As Gelman wrote, once information is available, there is no way to stop its dissemination:

"Often the presence of security or access safeguards on certain forums or services leads users to believe that communications made within these areas are private. For example, some bulletin-board services maintain forums that are restriced to users who have a password. While communications made in these forums may initially be read only be the members with access, there's nothing to prevent those members from recording the communication and later transmitting them elsewhere." (Gelman, 41-2)

The largest problems currently facing online privacy are the lack of structured privacy standards, the internet community's general lack of privacy knowledge, and the lack of viable legislation surrounding privacy issues.