Commerce Vs. Privacy - regulating commercial databases and mailing lists is unnecessary

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Jan, 1999 by Solveig Singleton

Who Owns the Rights to Data About Your Life?

"Should private companies be permitted to keep information about their customers' buying habits and share it with other businesses?"

THERE IS growing tension between calls more privacy and the free flow of information. The Onion, Madison, Wis., satirized growing concern over privacy rights in an article entitled "New `Phone Book' Raising Serious Privacy Issues." It described calls for "strict controls" on phone books, quoting a mythical privacy advocate's warning that, with such a directory, "anyone could know your phone number in literally seconds."

The best satire makes a deeper point, and this is no exception. Americans report they are worried about their privacy. The number of people "somewhat concerned" about threats to privacy, either from the government or private businesses, grew from 64% in 1978 to 82% in 1995, according to the Washington Post. Yet, while we want privacy for ourselves, we demand information about others--such as childcare workers, new neighbors, and co-workers. Few people take steps to protect their privacy beyond drawing the blinds at night. We prefer the convenience of credit cards or mail order shopping to cash and the anonymity of malls. Our actions speak louder than the surveys.

However, there are moral and economic issues raised by the ongoing debate about privacy. Do private business and marketing threaten privacy the same way that government databases do? Should private companies be permitted to keep information about their customers' buying habits and share it with other businesses?

A majority of Americans (52%) see government as a greater threat to privacy than private businesses, indicate authors Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau in Privacy on the Line, though 40% regard business as a greater threat. Jim Castelli points out in "How to Handle Personal Information" (American Demographics, March 1996) that "the public's concerns are fueled by a steady supply of articles and television programs about the dire implications of data-driven marketing. `The right to privacy has all but disappeared,' says a typical account, `sacrificed on the altar of customer service and corporate profits.'"

Privacy activists also equate threats to privacy by private-sector businesses and government. Speaking of data collection, consumer advocate Leslie Byrne maintains that "companies have become Big Brother to many. It's more than controlling your life in a sci-fi way; it's selling your life." Big Brother, though, was the icon of a totalitarian police state, not Macy's, Home Depot, or the local bridal shop.

Government databases pose a more serious threat for one fundamental reason: government alone may deploy the police, the military, and the courts. Marketing agencies compile lists mainly to sell people things--a nuisance, but little more than that. By contrast, government databases pose terrible risks. Data collected by the U.S. Census, for example, was used to track down Japanese-Americans during World War II. The government seized their homes and businesses and forced them into resettlement camps.

We can protect our privacy from commercial marketers by limiting our use of credit cards. We can buy software to stop our children from giving out information on the Internet. We can hang up on telemarketers who call during dinner. However, we dare not do that to the Internal Revenue Service. In the course of enforcing tax, highway, and public health regulations, the government has far more power to collect information than any private company and more power to act on that data once it is collected.

As the size of the Federal government grows, so will threats to privacy. The Social Security System, now veering ever closer to bankruptcy, brought problems with Social Security numbers being used in numerous ways beyond their original function. Health care legislation passed in 1996 created a new centralized medical database. The same year, a law was passed requiring employers to register all new employees in a massive database.

With government looming as an ever greater threat to privacy, why worry about businesses collecting marketing information? The media reports that web sites can use roving software tags called "cookies" to collect information such as a visitor's e-mail address surreptitiously. Internet commerce raises the possibility that businesses will be able to track an individual's purchasing habits and credit information without his or her knowledge. In 1996, several senators asked the Federal Trade Commission to study whether "the non-consensual compilation, sale, and usage of databases" is "a violation of private citizens' civil rights."

This view is appealing--nobody likes "big business"--but, it turns out, does not make sense. Freedom of information is the rule in the private sector, and this freedom should not be stifled in the name of privacy.

People can and do use law and technology to create islands of privacy for themselves. We expect lawyers and priests to keep information we give them confidential. Generations of custom define a doctor's obligation to protect his patients' privacy. On the other hand, no law, contract, or custom stops the butcher from telling the grocer that Mrs. Jones has just bought a ham and might need some mustard. There is no reason that electronic commerce and databases maintained by private businesses should be treated differently.