CYBERSENSE—E-Tailers Bet on Consumers Defaulting on Privacy Issue

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In these tumultuous, tech-driven times, it’s hard to find a sure thing.

Market leaders can stumble, solid business plans can cave in on themselves, and invincible players can be rendered vincible in the time it once took to make a home-cooked meal.

But if you’ve got to put your money down on something, bet on the default option.

Nothing succeeds like the thing that happens when you don’t bother doing something else. Sitting at home and watching TV is a default option. So is ordering takeout from the place on the corner, driving alone instead of carpooling, or even running Windows on your PC.

The dominance of the default option explains why Internet companies want to make you click through a few hoops to protect your privacy online. It also explains why politicians are likely to go along with them unless Net users pitch a fit first.

The Senate Commerce Committee held hearings earlier this month to discuss three bills that claim to protect the privacy of Internet users. The star of the show was a measure introduced by the committee’s chairman, Sen. John McCain.

McCain’s bill would force Web sites to post conspicuous privacy policies and give visitors a way to opt out of efforts to collect information about them. America Online and Hewlett Packard sent envoys to praise the bill during the hearing, an indication that the high-tech industry is behind it.

Hiding behind legalese

And why not? McCain’s bill and a second measure introduced by Sens. Conrad Burns and Ron Wyden leave Internet companies with the one thing they desperately want to control: the default option.

While people value their privacy, most won’t bother to opt out of the data-collection practices of every site they visit. The option can be buried behind pages of legalese, and sites wouldn’t be required to publicize the fact that opting out is even a possibility.

Even if you find and click that option on every site you visit, you might not be safe. Web sites often change their privacy policies, sometimes without telling their visitors. So unless you make a habit of rereading the privacy policy on each visit, you could end up sharing more data than you thought.

These points were made by privacy advocates who spoke out at McCain’s hearing in favor of a bill introduced by Sen. Ernest Hollings. That measure would make privacy the default option, requiring sites to get Web surfers’ permission before collecting personal data from them.

To companies looking to profit from that data, Hollings’ bill looks like a one-way trip to the dot-com obituary page. Since most people wouldn’t volunteer to give up their privacy, sites probably would resort to pop-up windows that would require your consent before you could enter. But at least people would be clear about what information is being collected.

It’s not unreasonable for the online industry to suggest that people who are worried about privacy should be willing to go to some trouble to do something about it. But since surveys consistently show a majority of Net users are worried about their privacy online, it would seem equally reasonable that Congress should impose that burden on the industry instead of on the general public.

Catering to New Economy

For Congress, though, the default position is pleasing high-tech companies. They’re the ones driving our glorious New Economy, after all with the old-fashioned money from our very own pockets. And they’re the ones sending lobbyists to Capitol Hill, bundles of contributions in hand, to discuss Internet policy.

Politicians also respond to their constituents, of course, but only if we call. Or write. Or e-mail. If enough Net users started clamoring for real privacy protection, McCain and other members of Congress would see the need to pass a bill that establishes privacy as the Net’s default position.

Of course, that takes even more trouble than opting out of a Web site’s data-collection practices. Most of us will probably just sit back and expect someone else to make that call.

That is, after all, the default position.

To contact syndicated columnist Joe Salkowski, you can e-mail him at [email protected] or write to him c/o Tribune Media Services Inc., 435 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 1400, Chicago, IL, 60611.

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