Americans claim they want to protect their personal data, but then they casually give it up to marketers. They also insist that information on the Web be free. The collection and reselling of consumer data predates the Web. But where it once took skill and serious money to pull together profiles of individuals, the Net has made the process much simpler and cheaper. And they never tell the individual customer about the inherent privacy issues.
Many Web sites have privacy policies.
But violations of those policies go unpunished. And organizations set up to monitor policies haven't shown any particular enforcement backbone, possibly because they're funded by the companies they monitor. Indeed, the market will solve some of the worst abuses. But the more subtle, pervasive manipulations will continue until they explode into public consciousness. That will lead to a call for government intervention that will be deafening and irresistible.