While the music industry is building legal dams against Napster to quell the rising tide of online file-trading, other online entrepreneurs are riding the wave with business strategies that coexist with the free flow of intellectual property. Companies tempted to negotiate with blackmailers who have stolen credit card numbers are usually most concerned about losing credibility and receiving negative publicity. But negotiating is usually a bad idea. American Express has been a forerunner in the creation of corporate privacy policies. When large companies first began appointing chief privacy officers last year, Sally Cowan found herself pioneering a new position at AmEx that upheld the firm's long-standing information practices.
Companies can learn valuable lessons from three recent online privacy controversies.
The first online voting trial in a presidential election will take place Nov. 7, when voters in Arizona's Maricopa County will cast sample ballots on the Internet. The Arizona vote and two similar pilot projects in California signal the growing acceptance of online voting, already embraced by labor unions, political parties and technical organizations. After learning that a security hole in its Internet Information Server software was being openly discussed online, Microsoft is recommending that users immediately install a patch that's supposed to fix the problem. It's expected to be adopted widely by the private sector, especially among financial services firms. The Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington charged that the FBI's first release last week of documents on its Carnivore Internet surveillance system doesn't include enough information to evaluate the technology for possible privacy violations.