The awards certainly deserve the higher profile - they are a lively and humorous way of raising awareness about very serious privacy concerns and opening up the debate on the subject. Some people, of course, won't agree with the awards. In some cases they will be the ones who believe law enforcement should be given broad permission to fight the world's evils with technology, especially in cases where the evildoers might be using technology themselves to evade detection. As this column has pointed out several times before, this argument in most cases has been proven an empty one - more scaremongering than realistic. Other people who may find the awards annoying or perhaps simply surprising are businesses looking at the Internet as a way of gathering information on customer interests and desires and of selling directly to them.
Many Web users find the Web a more personal, enclosed space.
They don't like getting unsolicited email. They often feel as if someone has entered their home without their permission. Businesses should understand that the legal parameters for collecting and using information on individuals are worryingly blurred - for example, the European Directive on Data Protection directly clashes with the US on some central privacy concerns and because of this, has not yet been implemented months after it was slated to come into effect. So if you have a business, take the time to inform yourself about privacy issues. At the very least, your online integrity and reputation may depend upon it, but so may the success and even survival of your online venture.