Wired: Nothing to Yahoo Over New E-Rules. Nothing new here, but a nice roundup of some of the top privacy-related stories from the past week: Kazaa, United Virtualities, Yahoo. Here’s a typical quote-miller talking about Yahoo:
“Bad PR or not, the company is in business to make money. Users will either understand that or they won’t,” DM News’ Clarke said. “And I’ll bet Yahoo would be content to see disappear from its database the ones who don’t.”
Yeah, well, I am increasingly of the opinion that the Internet is not really about making money, was never supposed to make anyone any money, and was in fact designed to prevent many of the things that companies traditionally do to make money. And violating your customers’ privacy was never a particularly good business model, and it’s looking like a worse and worse choice every day. Companies will either understand that or they won’t, and I’ll bet many users would be content to see disappear from the DNS database the ones who don’t.
§
I am no longer accepting public comments on this post, but you can use this form to contact me privately. (Your message will not be published.)
§
firehose ‧ code ‧ music ‧ planet
© 2001-8 Mark Pilgrim