Wired: Expert: Go Easy on Privacy Regs

[Owen Blacker]

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http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,38893,00.html

Expert: Go Easy on Privacy Regs 
by Declan McCullagh <mailto:declan@wired.com>

9:00 a.m. Sep. 19, 2000 PDT
WASHINGTON -- Say what you will about Richard Epstein, but don't call
him a privacy zealot. 

The erudite University of Chicago law professor said Tuesday that
instead of staking out extreme positions on both sides of the topic,
advocates instead should consider the likely outcome of government
regulations. 

"Privacy is not an area in which you should want to make highly
dogmatic claims of rights on either side," Epstein said at a Capitol
Hill event organized by George Mason University's Mercatus Center
<http://www.mercatus.org/>. 

Epstein, a prominent scholar with a habit of speaking in
well-bracketed paragraphs, said that some areas of the law -- such as
digital signatures and authentication technology -- could benefit
from congressional action. 

But he was generally critical of new laws regulating the private
sector's data collection practices -- and indirectly jabbed at
left-leaning groups that have backed such legislation. 

"There is in cyberspace a Cassandra movement out there that sees in
this the death of civilization... I just don't think most people care
about (privacy) to the extent that privacy mavens do," said Epstein,
who served as a legal advisor to eBay during the firm's attempts to
limit competitors' bots from trawling its website for personal
information. 

Epstein said that instead of new regulation, privacy "can be
powerfully advanced by the law of contract." 

The chief economist of the Dallas Federal Reserve bank agreed. 

"We ought to go very, very slow in imposing laws at this stage,"
suggested Michael Cox. 

Cox said that the benefits of exchanging personal information -- such
as lower costs and greater customization -- exceeded the privacy
costs. 

To further his point, Cox handed out copies of the Dallas Fed's 1998
annual report, which says: "By making it cheaper to personalize
during production, information age tools remove the last barriers to
providing goods and services for individual customers." 

"The day will come when you can get on the Internet and order your
own unique cereal," Cox said. 

- -----
Owen Blacker
Senior Internet Developer and InfoSec Consultant, pres.co
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