Laws around the world
I did an earlier post on U.S. privacy laws, but here I’ll recap the various laws that exist in the U.S. and around the world that limit search engines’ data-gathering powers.
The European approach to privacy tends to view privacy as a human right upon which private companies cannot infringe. The European Union has adopted a framework called the European Privacy Directive, which provides guidelines for individual nations to develop and enforce their own laws. In France, for example, employers cannot fire workers based on things they find when reading the workers’ personal emails. (1) Databases of consumer information in Europe must be registered with the government, and telemarketers and spammers can only target people who have explicitly given their permission. (1)
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) framework, on the other hand, is very weak when it comes to protecting consumers’ rights. Consumers must prove actual financial damage from the tracking and/or disclosure of their data in order for a company to be in violation of the law, something that is usually practical only in cases of identity theft. (2) This policy ignores the non-financial reasons why people value privacy, such as avoiding embarrassment or merely disliking the idea that all of one’s activities are recorded.
In the U.S., the word “privacy” is not mentioned in the Constitution, and as a result laws to protect privacy have arisen haphazardly. “There are so many industries with well-paid lobbyists ready to pounce, the minute you propose anything of any breadth you are inundated with whiny companies,” says George Washington University professor Daniel Solove. “It’s easier to do something pretty narrow and go after the ‘now’ problem and limit the amount of companies that are angry at you.” (1) For example, the Video Privacy Protection Act was passed in 1988 after a newspaper published a Supreme-Court nominee’s video rental records (1), and the Telemarketing Do-Not-Call Registry was created by the FTC in 2003 because of consumers’ frustration at excessive telemarketing calls during dinner. (3) In general, laws in the U.S. place more emphasis on protecting people from privacy intrusions by the government, while ignoring similar intrusions by private companies.
Sources:
1. Sullivan, Bob. “Privacy Lost: EU, U.S. laws differ greatly.” MSNBC. 19 Oct. 2006. 4 Jan. 2008 <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15221111/>.
2. Holtzman, David. “Google’s Paltry Privacy Proposal.” BusinessWeek.com. 12 Oct. 2007. 2 Jan. 2008 <http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2007/tc20071011_180811.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_technology>.
3. Hoofnagle, Chris. “Privacy Self-Regulation: A Decade of Disappointment.” EPIC. 4 Mar. 2005. 4 Jan. 2008 <http://epic.org/reports/decadedisappoint.html>.