In Depth

Online Privacy: Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide

As news of the spread of the avian flu grows, businesses must factor in the possibility of a pandemic into their continuity planning.

By CSO Contributor

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Even so, many companies, especially high-profile Web pioneers, are trying to stake out positions as responsible stewards of their customers' information. "We try to be extremely explicit about the data we are collecting and how we are storing it, and we let the customer know the benefits to them," said panelist Bradley Horowitz, head of technology development for Yahoo's search and marketplace group. "We let them know that if they are willing to let us target ads to them, they will get more relevant content. If we are vigilant and explicit," users can make decisions that best meet their needs.

But even the most conscientious company sometimes stumbles. Yahoo, for example, came under criticism when it changed the terms of the user agreement at its Geocities division, said panelist Declan McCullagh, who covers online privacy for CNET News.com. The company "was claiming rights to all of your content in perpetuity. It was remarkably broad. It was just the work of an overzealous lawyer, but it allowed competitors to say, 'We are not going to make movies based on your content. Come to us.'"

Despite this incident, McCullagh suggested that most complaints about privacy problems on the Web come not from consumers, but from "the privacy fundamentaliststhe pro-regulation privacy groupsand the politicians, who are always trying to get their names in the newspaper." After Google introduced Gmail, for example, a California lawmaker introduced a bill to ban the service. McCullagh argued that consumers accept existing safeguards as long as they believe they are getting better prices or programming in return for relinquishing personal details.

Panelist Steve Johnson, chief executive of Cambridge, Mass.-based Choicestream, which makes personalization software for websites, agreed. "There is a simple divide in the world of consumer profilingthe type consumers like and the type they don't. Consumers don't like it when they have no control, when they are being watched with so-called spyware or when they can't opt out. But they like it when they can see that data can be opted out of and when the watching is done by a trusted source like Amazon or iTunes."

In addition, consumers are less likely to try to disguise their identity by lying about themselves in site registrations if they believe that their details will be used to serve them, he said. "With The New York Times, if you are willing to share personal information, you get the most relevant book reviews. So you don't have any incentive to spoof it." In many cases, spoofing is futile anyway, argued panelist Ravi Aron, Wharton professor of operations and information management. Companies that track Web-surfing behavior can quickly build demographic profiles of users based on the sites they visit and the services they use. "Providers can tell if you are spoofing if you say you are an 85-year-old grandma and your behavior doesn't match the stuff that an 85-year-old grandma would read," he said.