Government can establish incentives for industry to self regulate, but at the same time, it should set certain minimum standards to create a level playing field. Earlier this year, a group called the Privacy Coalition whose members include the American Civil Liberties Union, Consumers Union, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, among others - set out to protect consumers from Internet businesses that collect information without the consumer s permission. The types of abuses they want to guard against are varied. It s not a serious intrusion, but it might be considered offensive by some. Or take the case of a company that fired an employee who made disparaging comments about his boss in a chat room.
Remedies do exist in the form of civil law suits against a number of firms for privacy violations.
Often public outrage over a potential privacy violation can force companies to change their policy. The online advertising company DoubleClick had originally intended to combine the names and addresses of consumers with information gleaned from online profiling, but the uproar from outraged consumers caused them to put their plans on hold. Amazon last fall annoyed users by instituting a change to their privacy policy that would allow Amazon to sell consumer information in the event that the company was ever acquired. Other companies have been sued by class action lawyers for allegedly tracking customers without their permission. For example, I don t have to get part of the New York Times off the web for free.