La documentation française a la bonne idée de publier un ‘Médias et vie privée’ (info via Infostratège, qui a établi par ailleurs une bibliographie sélective intéressante sur le droit de l’information). La vie privée est de fait de plus en …

Every time someone uses a web site, some information is collected. Anyone who pays for anonymizer software of services gives up less information, but pays.

Every time someone clicks with their DVR remote, they’re giving up information when their television usage behavior gets uploaded. Those without such services don’t pay in dollars, but they would do without such services.

In these cases, those concerned enough with privacy are the tiniest slice of the consumer population. Right now, there’s a lot of vocalizing going on, but not a whole lot of the general population really understands the issue beyond the idea of identity theft. So they’re really not behaving any differently.

A lot of these ideas are actually well explored by Jeffrey Rosen, David Brin, to a lesser degree myself and others.

We are now finally reaching some inflection points where broader concerns are coming to light. It should be interesting to watch and participate in the debate.

(I worked for Austin for three years, and have spent a lot of time thinking about how we were ahead of our time, and what else we might have done better.)

Anyone thinking of looking that the privacy space might be interested in this case study on Zero-Knowledge Systems. http://tinyurl.com/2q3kqp

The company is now called Radialpoint and is very successful in a new business. http://tinyurl.com/349x5h

Maybe as Zero-Knowledge Systems we were ahead of our time?

It’s a social value enforced by law.

Can the rise of a premium service be used to highlight an underlying problem, in turn helping to drive public policy?

Certainly there are differences between a POTS line and internet surfing, but fundamentally if enough people ‘revolt’ by paying, perhaps Washington takes notice.