Yahoo! Still Exists, Says Internets Are Safer Than They Used To Be
A Congressional panel is looking into drafting new online privacy laws, but Yahoo says such legislation isn't necessary because the e-industry has done such a bang-up job of regulating itself.
A Business Mirror story on the matter goes:
"Most advances in online privacy protection have come as a result of industry initiatives and self-regulation," Anne Toth, Yahoo!'s head of privacy, said in written testimony submitted to a joint House hearing. "Market forces drive companies like Yahoo! to bring privacy innovations to our customers quickly."
The hearing on industry practices and consumer expectations was held before the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet and the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection.
The hearing concerned a debate over how companies use customers' personal information. Charter Communications Inc. halted a plan to track customers' Internet use for a targeted-ad campaign after lawmakers objected last year.
In February the Federal Trade Commission urged providers of Internet advertisements, such as Mountain View, California-based Google Inc., to gain consent before collecting personal data.
Closely held Facebook Inc., operator of the world's largest social networking site, revised privacy principles in February after users complained about a policy change that let the company keep customers' photos and content, even if users closed their accounts.
Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, called loss of personal privacy "a big deal for most Americans, and it's a very big deal to me."
"People should have the option to prevent any kind of data collection in the first place," Barton told the hearing. "The public calls for action have reached a deafening pitch."
So that's why we're going deaf. It wasn't that rock and roll music (that Big Brother didn't realize we downloaded because our internet privacy is so secure) we've been listening to and playing too loud.
Yahoo! says consumer online privacy has improved [Business Mirror]
(Photo: Therrol)
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Comments:
...because the e-industry has done such a bang-up job of regulating itself.
*SNORT*
I hate to say but I do agree with this article. Privacy online has been pushed by the companies and not by the government, even if you look at companies abroad. Then again the only reason for this is the money it makes them in the end.
Do you realize how silly it is to joke a company "still existing," implying that they have all but disappeared, when that company has the second most visited site on the Internet?
"People should have the option to prevent any kind of data collection in the first place,"
No, Joe, data collection should be prevented in the first place. The option would be to turn it on.
@Cant_stop_the_rock: It's crazy that they do...I'm with Consumerist, I guess, as I haven't been to Yahoo in years.
@Cant_stop_the_rock: Yahoo is the best place to get historical finaincal data. Good fantasy sports too.
I would not trust the government to regulate anything involving civil liberties, as they will mess it up. You think the bozos the last 8 years were bad, they are nothing compared to the current set.
Please stop with 'the internets'. That one's well past it's sell-by date.
@larrymac: I agree. Personal data should be treated as the property of the person. It shouldn't be legal to appropriate personal information unless sold or bargained away by the owner, knowingly and with accountability to the person the data is about.
@I Love New Jersey: You're the human equivalent of a parrot, squawking canned pet phrases on the internets, aren't you?
It all makes sense now.
I like the article, but a couple points:
The electric razor: I found significant savings in using a double edged safety razor. The blades are almost free, and you can find the razor itself for as cheap as $5.
Laptop: I just realized that having the 100w bulb on while reading takes more power than using my Macbook.
The calculator: This guy is so cheap he doesn't have a cell phone
The flash drive: Who the hell pays $18 for a 1GB flash drive? How did he come up with $18 of savings in a month?
The shower head: How do you measure the sorrow of sand-blasting your filthy carcass with tiny bits of accelerated water?
Dance Dance revolution: Can I bench press the dance mat?
Coin sorter: Commerce bank
Tivo: Bittorrent
@I Love New Jersey: They are both terrible. I honestly don't know why more people don't vote third party. Still stuck in "lesser of two evils" mode. And end up still getting evil.
As for creating more laws. How about repealing some existing ones? Personal privacy has always been protected in the bill of rights. How about you start using some of those original laws your country had?
People honestly every time in nearly the last decade (or more now) any law the government had made has turned out terrible. They should seriously put a freeze on law making, and start with some selective law repealing.
Agreed. I would never consider Yahoo anywhere near vanishing. But we do use Yahoo! Small Business for hosting/email at my office.
Their fantasy football charges for things that ESPN does for free, and has far less features even after that. I fail them in that category.
I think the time has come to make a law allowing severe penalties for companies who discriminate against people based on what they find on personal websites such as facebook etc. I was hoping when I saw the headline it would be something along these lines.
@montusama: Except... it hasn't really been pushed that much. The general rule of thumb is "Nobody can see our custoemrs' info... unless they buy it from us, or are one of our partners, or are our internal spamhaus, or they missed the 5-point bit at the bottom of the registration form to opt out of our newsletter. And we'll still track an uncomfortable amount of information about them, but they can trust us with it, because there's no such thing as data breaches."
Companies have been caught storing their entire credit card database in a plain-text, unencrypted file on a publically-available server before. What privacy?
@Cant_stop_the_rock: In America? I'd believe that if you were referring to Yahoo Japan since they managed to beat eBay at making a successful auction site there and managed to get a carrier integration deal thanks to...something (so you can access your account and billing stuff through them). But I'd never think that Yahoo America is the second most visited site. Or maybe that's all the countries aggregated together?
@larrymac: Good idea. I want to forbid experian/trans union/etc and slime like choicepoint from collecting any data about me whatsoever.
@I Love New Jersey: Because private industry has always been so respectful of civil liberties? I guess that's why my local phone company charges a monthly fee to have an unlisted phone number.
@Aladdyn: Impossible to enforce. Just like if a business hires only women with DDs. Personally I'd like it to be illegal for companies to ask applicants to pee in cups
Most of the areas where Google is powerful or dominant are ones that use their world-beating generic search to do something.
Anything where you can rely entirely on a more structured search of more structured data (or where you don't need a search) is a niche where Google can be beaten. Yahoo has several of these niches.
@larrymac: Common sense? In my government? Are you mad?
(All kidding aside, I think that's a brilliant and logical way to think about privacy. We'd all be safer and more secure if businesses put that kind of common sense above profit.)
@swintronix: Well, color ME surprised. And surprise, surprise, Yahoo actually places No. 1 in Japan while Google is No. 3 there. What's also interesting that Yahoo beats out Google in practically all of Asia while the reverse seems to be true of Europe and North America.
The hands-down biggest threat to online privacy doesn't come from ISPs and social networking but rather from the federal government's warrentless wiretapping. I'd like to see the legislature address that. But seeing as how Obama voted in favour of telecom immunity, I don't think that's likely to happen.
The end of days is definitely near when I can agree with Joe Barton. Now if we could just get him to agree that mercury emissions from his favorite concrete kilns in Midlothian, TX really are a health hazard...