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| IntroductionAs a U.S. citizen or resident you have certain inalienable and legal Constitutional rights. One of the most important is the right of privacy; this right is now well defined in most of our social transactions and relationships except where it is drawn into cyberspace and particularly within an e-commerce context. Recent privacy polls show that between fifty-five and ninety-two percent of netizens are "very concerned" about how their personal information is collected and sold. If you have ever filled out an online registration form or made a purchase using your browser your names and much other personal information is collected and stored within multiple data bases. Beyond such issues as who has access to your health records and whether "encryption" is a personal right is the widely discussed issue of consumer privacy. In the early days of e-commerce (a mere 3 years ago) there was consumer skepticism about the piracy of personal information, particularly financial card numbers. Today, the increased use by e-commerce entities of data-mining techniques, to gain extensive personal information, breeds new consumer paranoia about the uses and misuses of private information given over the Internet. The irony facing concerned Internet users is that the 1974 Privacy Act and the Constitution protect against privacy intrusion by federal agencies but not from private companies. In the lasting words of former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis: "The right most valued by civilized people is the right to be left alone." A succinct reminder of our modern age comes from Bruce Kasanoff, CEO of RespectPrivacy.com: Start your Privacy WebQuest by clicking on "Your Task" on the right menu |
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