Internet Privacy: Who Makes the Rules

Abstract

Richard M. Smith, Chief Technology Officer of the Privacy Foundation, discusses the ways emerging technology infringes consumer privacy on the Internet. He believes the widespread use of cookies and the growing use of online profiling by companies like DoubleClick create serious privacy problems for people who use the Internet. The solution lies in combining the efforts of programmers, who can find ways to eliminate these profiling mechanisms online, and of lawyers, who can structure legal rules to proscribe information misuse.