An Indecent Proposal: How Congress Wants to Protect Your Internet Privacy
An Internet of Anonymity
Almost since the inception of the Internet, personal data has been the golden stockpile of the e-commerce infrastructure. What would the Internet look like if every user was entirely anonymous? How would search giants like Google, who rely on huge pools of user-specific data, effectively reshape their business model? How could marketers conduct efficient demographic research that pertains to many different industries? How would the behavioral targeting business stand on its own two feet?
On February 8th, U.S. Representative Edward J. Markey (D-Malden), the ranking Democrat on the Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, proposed a bill with the potential to rattle the foundation of online marketing. If passed, the “Eliminate Warehousing of Consumer Internet Data Act of 2006″ will forbid any website from retaining the personal information of its customers—including credit card numbers, e-mail address, date of birth, home address, and Social Security number—beyond the point which it is necessary for “legitimate business purposes.”
The proposed legislation makes no distinction between corporations, individuals, bloggers, nonprofit groups or charities. If it is enacted, the bill will force them all to delete every idle piece of personal identification in their possession, or at least come up with a legitimate business purpose to hold on to it.
Where’s the Threat?
In his proposal, Rep. Markey suggested that events of the past year raised particular concerns over the security of personal information, saying “If 2005 was the year of the data breach, I am going to make sure that 2006 is the year of safeguarding the privacy of American citizens.” What events is he referring to? What is driving his sudden motivation to introduce privacy legislation?
I recently asked Jim Harper, Director of Information Policy Studies at the Cato Institute—an internet advocate for public policy based on individual liberty and free markets—whether the breach of personal data is currently a big enough problem to warrant legislation. To say the least, he was skeptical. “Millions of records have been breached but it looks like only very small percentages of those breaches cause anyone any harm,” he said. “Everyone agrees that companies should improve their security, but it’s probably overkill to make a federal case out of data breaches.”
What is it then that makes 2005 the “year of the data breach”? The first, most obvious place to look is Google. Last summer, the internet search giant was served a subpoena by the U.S. Supreme Court seeking records of its users’ search activity. The action represented the government’s first major attempt to intercede in the monitoring of informational data in the online realm. Google boldly refused to hand over their data, and a sticky legal battle ensued, one that is ongoing at the time of print.
The “Eliminate Warehousing of Consumer Internet Data Act of 2006″ might be seen as a direct reaction to what Markey sees as Google’s greedy attempt to hoard vast amounts of its users data. It is understood that they use this very data as a platform for their wide-reaching ad serving program. But does this constitute the abuse of privacy? Are search queries, which contain no physical identifiers of the user, at the risk of malicious data breach?
Even though Google might look like a motivating factor for Markey, the bill does not explicitly address search information, ISP addresses, date/time of access information or unique cookie IDs. It does implicitly suggest that this information is part of the problem: “Certain information about Internet searches or website visits conducted from a particular computer can be obtained and stored by websites or search engines, and can be traced back to individual computer users.” Enigmatically, it acknowledges the threat of this non-personal data, but does not actually propose that it must be deleted with the rest. As it is currently written, the bill would have little effect on sites like Google, which rely on search identifiers rather than real-world personal information.
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