July 2nd, 2009

New BT Principles May Not Go Far Enough To Stop Regulation

By Wendy Davis, Mediapost

Some consumer advocates said they were unimpressed with the new principles. Lee Tien, an attorney at the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, argues that self-regulatory programs will not adequately protect privacy because consumers currently have no way of knowing their privacy has been compromised, much less complaining about it to an enforcement body.

"There's no good reason to expect self-regulation to work," Tien says, adding that companies currently compile dossiers used to target people based on behind-the-scenes data-crunching without explaining how specific information is being used.

Related Issues: Privacy

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