[governance] So Who (or What) is Managing Privacy for/by the 1 Billion+

[David Conrad]

[Merging two messages]

Roland,

On Dec 28, 2012, at 5:38 AM, Roland Perry <roland at internetpolicyagency.com> wrote:
> In message <ABD62AA5-F63A-4391-A264-010001BB18C3 at virtualized.org>, at 19:51:45 on Thu, 27 Dec 2012, David Conrad <drc at virtualized.org> writes
>>  Your rights to privacy are not removed by Facebook changing their terms and conditions.  You have the ultimate right to privacy by not subjecting yourself to their endless incomprehensible games
> How would that work if your connectivity ISP decided it would publish the urls of all the websites you visit? With the get-out that you could always find another ISP if you didn't like it.

As Avri points out, this is probably a contract law issue.

If your contract with your ISP allows them to sniff your data to extract URLs that the ISP can then publish and you don't like this, then yes, the get-out is to terminate your contract for your ISP's services and find another (something I would highly recommend).

However, I believe there is a fundamental difference between the relationship you have with Facebook and one you have with your ISP: with your ISP, you are the customer and you are paying for data transit services under terms and conditions that (presumably) dictate that the ISP doesn't do what you suggest. With Facebook, you, as a Facebook user and the data you voluntarily provide to Facebook, are the product.

On Dec 28, 2012, at 5:32 AM, Roland Perry <roland at internetpolicyagency.com> wrote:
> In message <A0A499E7-3064-4CE2-B982-A2E6FBA0DE57 at virtualized.org>, at 17:34:47 on Thu, 27 Dec 2012, David Conrad <drc at virtualized.org> writes
>> Facebook's rules may result in intrusions into my privacy (not my right to privacy), but if so, the answer would appear to be simple: if I don't like their rules or how those rules are changed, I will exercise my right to privacy and choose to not use their service.
> 
> The problem with that approach is the suspicion that when they make changes they are retrospective; 

If a term of the Facebook terms and conditions is that they can change their terms unilaterally and I accept their terms and conditions in order to make use of their services, then to be safe I should assume that they will, at some point in the future, do the worst possible thing they are legally allowed to do in the legal venue in which the contract between Facebook and I apply.

> Security by obscurity, perhaps, but a great deal of what Facebook offers is "privacy by obscurity".

There's a reason "security by obscurity" is considered pejorative :).  As security by obscurity can't be relied upon, I believe "privacy by obscurity" is functionally equivalent to "no privacy", particularly as data warehouses continue to grow and data mining techniques continue to improve over time.

To me, it's simple: if you want to keep something private, don't put it on the Internet, regardless of whether the vehicle for posting is Facebook or anything else. Where my rights to privacy are impacted is when I do not have control over what gets put onto the Internet. The interesting Internet governance question to me is given the increased governmental mandates for putting stuff like health records, utility billing information, etc., onto the Internet whether I have any control anymore.  

Regards,
-drc


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