Richard Bennett, a Silicon Valley network architect and technical consultant, offers some commentary in The Register today about what he characterizes as a “fit of temporary sanity” in Washington over regulating online behavioral advertising. From his commentary: The new consensus dictates that the key issues are the protection of archived information from abuse, consumer notification…
Category: Business
SCOTUS won’t hear Rx data-mining case
The wire services are reporting that the Supreme Court has denied certiorari in an appeal filed by IMS Health and Verispan. The companies were appealing a New Hampshire law that protects physicians’ prescription-writing data from data-mining companies that ana collect, analyze and sell that information to boost drug sales. The companies argued that the law…
Spy society: astonishing amount of personal data
Have you ever been tempted to try to find out what information about you is out there in databases? Matt Roper did just that, and sent out requests under the UK’s Data Protection Act to 46 organizations, requesting copies of all of his information. What he got back was a 2-foot high pile of records…
Who’s watching the watchers?
A silicon chip in your Viagra pack reports back to Pfizer on how much you took, and when. You fetch the last Coke from your chip-tagged fridge and your TV airs a Pepsi ad. Your phone company combs your trash for the chips you’ve cast off, selling the data it finds to marketers. And when…