Politech mailing list archives

Last week's column: Gmail flap exposes privacy fundamentalists [priv]


From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Date: Mon, 3 May 2004 11:23:27 -0500


http://news.com.com/2010-1032-5199224.html

Gmail and its discontents
April 26, 2004, 4:00 AM PT
By Declan McCullagh 

The sharp reaction to Google's announcement of the Gmail service
earlier this month underscored a deep divide in the tactics and
strategies employed by Internet privacy activists.

Privacy groups like the Electronic Privacy Information Center in
Washington, D.C., and London-based Privacy International denounced
Gmail as an intrusion that must not be permitted to exist. ...

The objections lodged against Gmail are telling, because they
illuminate two different views about how to respond to new
technologies. The protechnology view says customers of a company
should be allowed to make up their own mind and that government
regulation should be a last resort. Privacy fundamentalists, on the
other hand, insist that new services they believe to be harmful should
be banned, even if consumers are clamoring for them.

"Whether it's on this issue or a host of other issues, the de facto
position of many privacy groups--EPIC being the lead--is
antitechnology," said Rob Atkinson, vice president of the Progressive
Policy Institute. "It's to shut new IT technologies down before we use
them." Atkinson, by the way, is no Newt Gingrich-voting Reaganaut. His
institute is part of the Democratic Leadership Council, once chaired
by then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton in 1991.

[...remainder snipped...]
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