the adult book store example is a good one; have the same thing captured by Google Street Image (and it has, on at least one occasion) and the notion of privacy expectations gets turned on its ear.

http://news.cnet.com/2300-1025_3-6187837-5.html

cheers

dt

“Stalking” is exactly the word for this, and I say that from having helped send a violent stalker to prison years ago and then learning more than anyone would want to know about stalkers. It’s also not unreasonable to suggest that criminal stalkers could take advantage of the same infrastructure used by advertisers, in conjunction with geolocation on mobile devices, to track down victims who are attempting to evade them.

Given what Peter Eckersley at EFF said (which surprised me) that only 5% – 10% of total internet ad revenue comes from stalking, it would be interesting to calculate the actual revenue per tracked page-view per person (in other words, what any given website owner earns by allowing the stalkers to stalk you when you click on their web page), and publicize that number. I’m going to guess that it’s a small fraction of a penny per page view, perhaps 1/50 of one cent. When expressed that way, I’d bet that most people would rather pay their broadband provider the fractional penny per click, to get rid of the stalkers: and therein is a potential competing model of internet economics.

One more observation: the present legal doctrine of “no expectation of privacy while in public” is an extension of horse-and-buggy thinking in the superhighway era. It was conceived in the day when one’s public activities were casually observed by others, without aid of pervasive cameras and databases. To update it to the modern era we need to differentiate between “being seen,” “being watched,” and “being stalked.”

Being seen is casual: a prudish neighbor sees you walking out of the adult book store with a full shopping bag and gives you a disapproving look. That’s the original oldschool “no expectation of privacy” and clearly there’s nothing to be done about that.

Being watched is deliberate: the department store security officer thinks you’re a possible shoplifter and keeps an eye on you. But there is no persistent data collection or promiscuous data sharing, and even with the aid of cameras in the store, there is nothing particularly creepy going on.

Being stalked is what occurs when there is persistent collection, promiscuous sharing, and efforts at predicting individual behavior. This is what’s objectionable, creepy, and should be strictly regulated by law: in physical public spaces and online. At present it gets a free ride under the “no privacy in public” doctrine, but this is what we have to challenge and change about the doctrine.

There is a fourth category of course, “being surveilled,” which is lawful surveillance by agencies that are directly accountable in court and indirectly accountable to the voters. Here the appropriate standard should be “in an emergency or with a warrant,” where emergency surveillance is limited in duration and always followed by an application for a warrant. I’d guess that most of the public would be satisfied with the “emergencies and warrants” standard.

OK, so that’s enough for one comment and I’ll look forward to getting in touch via email, or alternately, feel free to say that my ideas stink and I should just buzz off;-)

-G.

Your pathetic wrantings and childish scribble say more about you than than they will ever say about Thailands Beloved King and his family.

The Thai Royals are too dignified to respond to the neurotic rantings of a rediculous FOOL like yourself, So on there behalf I will call you

A less than credible garbage bucket who is grosely misinformed. Thai people call you ….AI….PUN….YA…ON…HA..HA..HA………….

As computers get smarter, their users seem to be getting stupider.