An Austrian student is reportedly gearing up to challenge Facebook's privacy policy (which if you're familiar with Facebook, you realize is "no policy at all").
The case brings home to me how different are concepts of privacy in the U.S. and in Europe. While we may believe we're dedicated to privacy here, in fact Europe is far ahead of us in law and regulation that protects privacy. Living in Germany 20 years ago, for example, I learned it was illegal to have a second telephone in your house from which listening in was possible. As soon as anyone picked up a phone anywhere in the house, all other instruments on that line would go dead.
Here, the basic assumption underlying privacy doctrine is that information about you is not generally protected unless you take specific steps to deny its use. And who really reads those long, turgid agreements that you click on when you sign up for sites like Facebook? So it's quite possible for a company, organization, or individual to amass private data on nearly anyone and use it in any way they see fit.
A few years ago when I was more active on eBay than I am recently, I accidentally discovered that it's possible to see a bidder's record -- not just "feedback" on reliability/honesty, but a full listing of items he/she has bid on in the past, amount bid, and the like. I was pretty sure most people didn't realize this information about them was available (I know I wasn't). I told eBay about my discovery, pointing out I thought it was a violation of that other bidder's privacy The response, from some half-baked customer service rep was to ask what I had to hide. Well maybe nothing, really, but I don't see why a bidder against me should know about every bid I've made in the past, nor do I expect to be able to find such information on him.
It appears to me that privacy doctrine in Europe is the opposite: Your information isn't presumed to be available to, or shareable by, others unless you specifically opt in to allow it. That seems to be what the Austrian contender is arguing. It's a far more protective concept of privacy. It's what we should work toward.
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