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PRIVACY IN CYBERSPACE

Control, privacy, and power

A substantial problems with the consumerist and market approaches to protecting privacy on the Internet is that they require a functioning market. Under the consumerist approach, the consumer is provided with adequate notice before online profiling occurs and must consent to the collection of personal information. If the consumer doesn’t want to disclose her personal information, she can decide not to go forward with the particular service being offered. Under the market approach, privacy protection is one among several factors that consumers use to pick among competing goods and services, and if the consumer values her privacy, she will choose the option that protects her privacy in accordance with her values. In either case, however, there must be a meaningful choice before the consumer can act.

The Microsoft Monopoly

Microsoft has long manifested a facility for recognizing choke points in the computer world; that is, those points through which all transactions must pass. When one entity controls a choke point on the Internet, it can unilaterally set policies which undermines individual privacy if they increase that entity’s profits.

A good example of such a choke point is Microsoft’s Passport, which promises to provide “one easy way to sign in online,” across many websites. The Electronic Privacy Information Center has completed an extensive investigation into Microsoft Passport, and filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission in 2001 alleging that Microsoft engaged in unfair and deceptive trade practices when it tried to track and monitor the Internet activities of millions of users.

Free Software: A counterbalance

Within this framework, free software protects privacy in two important ways:

• Free software developers are not subject to the same market constraints as proprietary developers. One of the commercialized versions of Mozilla is Netscape. For various reasons, Netscape, which is owned by AOL Time Warner removed some of the privacy protective features of Mozilla, most notably the ability to block banner ads. Netscape also omitted the “pop-up blocking” features of Mozilla from one release, but later restored this feature.
• Proprietary software companies like Microsoft are kept in check by the threat of free software. As long as the consumer has no choice, Microsoft can build privacy invasive features into every application, limited only by the outer bounds of the law, as was the case in the Microsoft Passport Case at the FTC. When free software presents a viable alternative, however, commercial actors are limited in the extent to which they can force privacy-invasive technologies on consumers.

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