The Freedom Bulletin

The European Commission is considering a law that would greatly strengthen online privacy and restrict companies’ ability to track and store people’s Internet activity without their knowledge or consent. According to the New York Times:

Europe is considering a sweeping new law that would force Internet companies like Amazon.com and Facebook to obtain explicit consent from consumers about the use of their personal data, delete that data forever at the consumer’s request and face fines for failing to comply.

The proposed data protection regulation from the European Commission, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, could have significant consequences for all Internet companies that trade in personal data, whether it is pictures that people post on social networks or what they buy on retail sites or look for on a search engine.

The regulation would compel Web sites to tell consumers why their data is being collected and retain it for only as long as necessary. If data is stolen, sites would have to notify regulators within 24 hours. It also offers consumers the right to transport their data from one service to another — to deactivate a Facebook account, for example, and take one’s trove of pictures and posts and contacts to Google Plus.

This kind of law is exactly what not just Europe but the entire world needs. Companies should not be allowed to collect vast amounts of data, which they keep indefinitely, about people’s most private activities, when people are neither aware that this information will be seen by anyone but themselves, or given any true choice in the matter. As a country that was founded on the idea of individual rights, America should be paying as much attention as Europe does, if not more, to the right of each person to use the Internet while also maintaining their privacy.

Today Congress began holding hearings on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) (its counterpart in the Senate is the PROTECT IP Act). All around the web, various websites and organizations joined together to raise awareness and opposition to this bill, which would really make a dent in the freedom and usefulness of the Internet. According to CNN…

“If SOPA passes, copyright holders would be able to complain to law enforcement officials and get websites shut down. The law would also force intermediaries like search engines and payment processors to withhold their services from targeted websites.

That would be quite a change from the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which mandates that companies ‘act in good faith’ to remove content that infringes on copyrights and other intellectual property laws.”

According to AmericanCensorship.org, SOPA would enable websites to be shut down for mere links to copyrighted material posted by third-party users, and would make it a felony to stream a copyrighted work valued more than $2500. I would definitely recommend contacting your congressman through their site (or with your own message) to make sure this law doesn’t pass.

For more information and views, check out:

• Letter from AOL, eBay, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo, and Zynga (PDF)
• EFF blog post
• Ars Technica article

As you probably know by now if you haven’t been living under a rock, Craigslist decided to take down its “adult services” section in response to pressure from 17 states’ attorneys general. In the aftermath of Philip Markoff‘s suicide, one of the most vocal critics of the site’s adult services section has been Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. She also wants to repeal the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA), which shields websites from liability for things that third parties post.

In my opinion, Craigslist was not legally or morally obligated to remove its “adult” ads, and the attorneys general are acting like a bunch of paternalistic, sexist bullies.

First of all, the CDA is a good law. In addition to protecting Craigslist from liability for thinly-veiled prostitution ads, the CDA also protects sites like Youtube from being sued when people post copyright-infringing videos, and forums from being sued for users’ defamatory comments. This principle just makes sense. People are responsible for their own actions, so they should be held responsible for all of and only what they post themselves. For large, popular websites, it is unreasonable to expect administrators to be able to monitor everything that gets posted.

Additionally, the attitude of Coakley and the other attorneys general is sexist and insulting. In a joint letter, they write about the “women and children who will continue to be victimized.” Although probably not common, it’s certainly possible for men to be forced into prostitution, or even for women to be the perpetrators.

Furthermore, the attorneys general fail to distinguish between prostitution, an activity that is illegal but which some people choose to participate in, and human trafficking, which is when people are forced into prostitution. Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal, for example, said: “Prostitution is not a victimless crime. Human trafficking results in tragedies to children and others.” I don’t necessarily think prostitution should be legal, but everyone should recognize that there is a difference between choosing to do something and being forced to do it. Blumenthal seems unable to tell the difference.

Finally, the bullying by the attorneys general makes Craigslist, and by extension the Internet, worse. I don’t regularly use Craigslist, but it has a certain appeal that comes from its simplicity, freedom, and anonymity. In the age of cookies, behavioral tracking, and intrusive personalization, it is great that a site exists where people can simply post almost anything they want with little or no moderation. Last year, in response to pressure from 39 attorneys general, Craigslist began to require personally-identifying information for adult services ads. Although this might make the site safer, it detracts from the anarchy that makes Craigslist what it is.

In short, Craigslist is not doing anything wrong by merely failing to remove illegal ads that third parties post. In the vast majority of cases, people who post ads or respond to them do so because they have considered the risks involved and have decided that the benefits are worth it. To take away an option from people merely because it is dangerous insults them by implying that they cannot be trusted to make their own decisions, and harms them by denying them the ability to do something that they want to do. Although a small number of people are forced into prostitution against their will, and the existence of Craigslist might make their victimization slightly easier, not all prostitution involves force, and not all adult services ads involve prostitution. It is never okay to punish many people for the actions of a few.

In the eloquent words of the Cato Institute’s Jim Harper: “The cost to free speech in the AGs’ badgering of Craigslist vastly outweighs the infinitesimal crime-prevention benefit.”

I wish our attorneys general would stop bullying harmless websites like Craigslist, and start standing up for people’s liberty against oppressive federal laws like, say, the Durham-Humphrey Amendment or the health care non-reform law.

Google just released a new tool called Google Dashboard, which basically allows you to see all the information Google has collected about you. In my opinion, Dashboard does not go far enough in respecting people’s privacy rights.

Why? The main reason is that Dashboard only applies to data associated with people’s Google accounts, which is primarily data that you voluntarily give to Google. This includes Google profiles, emails in Gmail, events in Google calendars, and blogs at Blogger. I believe, and I think most people would agree, that these are not the most important things to people who believe in privacy. I don’t mind Google having information about me that I intentionally gave them. What I have a problem with is Google’s tracking of people’s searches, along with our IP addresses, which uniquely identify users’ computers. Google says that it keeps this data separate from people’s Google accounts, which I guess is better than keeping them together, but Google really shouldn’t be collecting this data at all, or at least it should allow people to opt out.

People have a right to use the Internet without being punished by having their privacy invaded. Unfortunately, Google has such a large market share that it has no incentive to respect people’s rights. The more Google invades your privacy, the more effective its ads will be and the more money it will make. It is situations like these that demand government intervention to secure people’s liberties against companies that want to take them away.

If you support Internet privacy, I would really recommend visiting the Network Advertising Initiative page to opt out of personalized advertising from some of the most widely used ad providers.

…without telling you. According to a recent federal court decision, law enforcement can read your emails as long as they give a warrant to your Internet service provider (like Comcast or AOL). They don’t have to serve you with a warrant.

This seems a little creepy to me. People have much more interest in the privacy of their emails than ISPs do. The government ought to let you know if they are going to read your emails.