Re: Philosophy of information ownership [ Re: Children's Privacy Act ]

[Bruce Baugh <bruce@aracnet.com>]

At 09:24 AM 5/27/96 -0500, Mike McNally wrote:

>What if I just *see* your couch, and then back in my garage I use my
>couch replicator to make a couch just like yours, complete with fuzzballs
>and loose change between the cushions?  Now I have your couch, in a sense.
>Are you still upset?

Watch and act. This doesn't bother me.

What specifically bothers me is the reselling of information that I chose to
reveal for a specific transaction, most especially when I did so with an
assumption of privacy. I'm happy to provide businesses with the info they
need to see that I'm not going to stiff them on a sale. I am _very_ unhappy
that some of them then turn around and sell that info to others, and doubly
so when what gets passed on is wrong.

>When I walked off with your blood chemistry data, did you lose the use
>of it for your future purposes?

What I've lost here is privacy, something which does have monetary value to me.

[example of info gleanable by my reading/posting to Cypherpunks and other
sources out there for the world to see]
>What do you propose as to the obligations I should have to you as regards
>the disposition of this information?  For example, what if I receive a 

Things like that don't bother me, either. If I really didn't want to be
associated with Cypherpunks that way, I could do things to protect my identity.

On the other hand, say I sign up for a mailing list that charges a
subscription fee, like Extropians. I would feel no ground for complaint if
someone markets a list of Extropian subscribers - but I'd feel much ground
for complaint if I learned the list owner were selling credit histories
gathered during the subscription process. (Unless, of course, I assent to a
clause to the effect that the list owner can do anything he wants with my
credit info, as opposed to the specific purpose of getting payment for the
list.)

--
Bruce Baugh
bruce@aracnet.com
http://www.aracnet.com/~bruce