The gloomy assessment of that tradeoff today is that privacy concerns are losing out, and that something needs to be done about the problem right now, before patterns are established and built into the infrastructure of the economy. The national mood has led to a flurry of privacy-related activity in Congress. Pending Senate bills include the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, the Privacy and Identity Protection Act of 2000, the Notice of Electronic Monitoring Act, the Consumer Internet Privacy Enhancement Act, the Secure Online Communication Enforcement Act of 2000, and the Freedom From Behavioral Profiling Act of 2000. The relative merits of legislation and self-regulation are fiercely debated, and will no doubt continue to be so for some time. But this story is not about that debate.
Privacy is good for business.
I've argued this from day one. If you're in the information business today, you've got to lead with privacy. The room was huge, immaculate, and tastefully appointed in the somewhat generic way that the offices of important government officials often are. A wall of windows provided a commanding view of the city. This ran counter to most of what I had read, and I wanted to hear more.