At the behest of FTC Commissioner Christine Varney , the private sector will try to convince the public that it will protect privacy at least as well as it's done in the physical world. Unfortunately, that means not very well. But because the Internet is a new medium and much in the public eye, the privacy standard won't be what we get in the real world of junk mail, mortgage companies that solicit new home buyers, army recruiters who call high school seniors, and vendors of baby clothes who contact new parents after birth announcements in the local newspaper. Instead, the standard will be at a higher level, the kind of pure privacy we'd love in our own private lives but certainly wouldn't apply to Hollywood stars, baseball sluggers, or children of prominent politicians. And that's fine, as long as we recognize our own hypocrisies and the decidedly unprivate world we live in daily.
Privacy is good.
We should make it stronger online. Some privacy players are subtly trying to shift the language of the public debate. He knows it's much easier to sell individual rights than bureaucratic meddling. The media has spouted mixed messages. Privacy is an uncomfortable issue for us media people who make our living on the First Amendment.