http://www.washtimes.com/national/news6-03102000.htm
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>
By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The virtual world just got a grim little jolt from the
American Bar Association.
On Wednesday, the nation's biggest group of
lawyers issued a no-frills primer called "Facts About
Privacy and Cyberspace," which is enough to make
even the most diehard e-mailer think twice.
Despite the jolly and well-publicized culture of
on-line commerce, family Web sites, chat rooms and
publications, not much is sacred — or private — on
the Internet.
"We want to educate people about these issues,"
said Paul Marcotte of the ABA in Chicago Thursday.
"All of the material has been pulled from existing
documents. It's already out there. We've just edited it
down."
Indeed. Congressional reports, industry surveys,
legal cases, media reprints and ABA documents have
been boiled down to a 24-page booklet that Mr.
Marcotte said is available to the public at the ABA
Web site
www.abanet.org/media/factbooks/cyberspace.pdf
"Self help and self empowerment in this field is a
good first step," said Jean Ann Fox of the Consumer
Federation of America.
Internet safety, not to mention civility, is still very
much a work in progress. And the on-line world is
awash in personal information — some of it
authorized, and much of it not.
The ABA cited a survey from an FTC report to
Congress that stated 93 percent of the 7,500 "busiest
servers on the World Wide Web" regularly collect
personal information about their users while only 44
percent post privacy notices. Just 10 percent comply
with the FTC's recommendations for fair information
practices.
And the public is already antsy.
An AT&T survey found that 87 percent of
Internet users were "very or somewhat" concerned
about their privacy. An equal amount felt using
personal data improperly was "very serious."
Nineteen percent of the respondents had already
experienced an "on-line privacy invasion."
Protective consumer laws have not really surfaced
yet.
While tax returns, library loans, welfare records
and criminal investigatory files are not public
information, the ABA noted, there is only a
"patchwork of laws" protecting the retrieval of other
personal information.
That can range from addresses and phone
numbers to credit information, professional licenses,
hobbies, medical and homeownership data and
political registrations.
"In toto," the ABA advises, "information
collectors can largely do what they want with most
information collected in cyberspace."
The details about this collecting get a little
hair-raising. Electronic " cookie" tags — actually a
file affixed to the user's own hard drive — identify
visitors at many Web sites, then track their patterns
through the Internet, accruing elaborate "inferential"
and "psychographic" data.
The ABA advises folks to protect themselves
with passwords or services which mask "electronic
footprints" or warn that a site is attempting to attach a
pesky " cookie" to the visitor's computer.
A password, they say, should be "at least six
characters long, contain a mix of alpha and numeric
characters and be changed regularly."
The booklet also offers advice for young Web
surfers, and to shoppers. Cyberspace
notwithstanding, consumers should still comparison
shop, keep records, buy from reliable and secure
sources and use a credit card to limit liability is there
is a problem.
Which brings us to e-mail. Most of the time, it
does not conveniently disappear into the ozone.
The ABA notes that "deleted e-mail is often
archived on tape and stored for years . . . unlike
postal mail, most e-mail is not really secure and can
be accessed or viewed on intermediate computers"
unless encrypted.
There is the Electronic Communications Privacy
Act, however, which prohibits unauthorized
interception and accessing of e-mail. The law has
some exceptions for service providers or employers
who maintain that monitoring all that electronic
gibbering is necessary for business.
But it is very tricky. Employers who fire or
discipline an employee based on information learned
through e-mails can be "a legal minefield," according
to the ABA.
For all its practical brevity, the group remains
modest about its new booklet, noting that it's meant
to "generate further reflection."[/quote]
------------------
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" RKBA!
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>
By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The virtual world just got a grim little jolt from the
American Bar Association.
On Wednesday, the nation's biggest group of
lawyers issued a no-frills primer called "Facts About
Privacy and Cyberspace," which is enough to make
even the most diehard e-mailer think twice.
Despite the jolly and well-publicized culture of
on-line commerce, family Web sites, chat rooms and
publications, not much is sacred — or private — on
the Internet.
"We want to educate people about these issues,"
said Paul Marcotte of the ABA in Chicago Thursday.
"All of the material has been pulled from existing
documents. It's already out there. We've just edited it
down."
Indeed. Congressional reports, industry surveys,
legal cases, media reprints and ABA documents have
been boiled down to a 24-page booklet that Mr.
Marcotte said is available to the public at the ABA
Web site
www.abanet.org/media/factbooks/cyberspace.pdf
"Self help and self empowerment in this field is a
good first step," said Jean Ann Fox of the Consumer
Federation of America.
Internet safety, not to mention civility, is still very
much a work in progress. And the on-line world is
awash in personal information — some of it
authorized, and much of it not.
The ABA cited a survey from an FTC report to
Congress that stated 93 percent of the 7,500 "busiest
servers on the World Wide Web" regularly collect
personal information about their users while only 44
percent post privacy notices. Just 10 percent comply
with the FTC's recommendations for fair information
practices.
And the public is already antsy.
An AT&T survey found that 87 percent of
Internet users were "very or somewhat" concerned
about their privacy. An equal amount felt using
personal data improperly was "very serious."
Nineteen percent of the respondents had already
experienced an "on-line privacy invasion."
Protective consumer laws have not really surfaced
yet.
While tax returns, library loans, welfare records
and criminal investigatory files are not public
information, the ABA noted, there is only a
"patchwork of laws" protecting the retrieval of other
personal information.
That can range from addresses and phone
numbers to credit information, professional licenses,
hobbies, medical and homeownership data and
political registrations.
"In toto," the ABA advises, "information
collectors can largely do what they want with most
information collected in cyberspace."
The details about this collecting get a little
hair-raising. Electronic " cookie" tags — actually a
file affixed to the user's own hard drive — identify
visitors at many Web sites, then track their patterns
through the Internet, accruing elaborate "inferential"
and "psychographic" data.
The ABA advises folks to protect themselves
with passwords or services which mask "electronic
footprints" or warn that a site is attempting to attach a
pesky " cookie" to the visitor's computer.
A password, they say, should be "at least six
characters long, contain a mix of alpha and numeric
characters and be changed regularly."
The booklet also offers advice for young Web
surfers, and to shoppers. Cyberspace
notwithstanding, consumers should still comparison
shop, keep records, buy from reliable and secure
sources and use a credit card to limit liability is there
is a problem.
Which brings us to e-mail. Most of the time, it
does not conveniently disappear into the ozone.
The ABA notes that "deleted e-mail is often
archived on tape and stored for years . . . unlike
postal mail, most e-mail is not really secure and can
be accessed or viewed on intermediate computers"
unless encrypted.
There is the Electronic Communications Privacy
Act, however, which prohibits unauthorized
interception and accessing of e-mail. The law has
some exceptions for service providers or employers
who maintain that monitoring all that electronic
gibbering is necessary for business.
But it is very tricky. Employers who fire or
discipline an employee based on information learned
through e-mails can be "a legal minefield," according
to the ABA.
For all its practical brevity, the group remains
modest about its new booklet, noting that it's meant
to "generate further reflection."[/quote]
------------------
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" RKBA!