Copyright 2000 The Chronicle Publishing Co.
The San
Francisco Chronicle
MAY 7, 2000, SUNDAY, SUNDAY EDITION
SECTION: SUNDAY CHRONICLE; Pg. 3/Z1; HOLDING COURT
LENGTH: 991 words
HEADLINE:
Clinic Open for Consumers Caught in Net
BYLINE:
REYNOLDS HOLDING
BODY:
DAMN CRAFTY, those
Californians.
Somehow, before Bill Gates or Silicon Valley or anything
remotely dot-com, they recognized the perils of personal information whizzing
through high-speed wires from one computer to the next. Somehow they knew their
names and addresses, their tastes and habits, would be like gold to any cyberage
huckster with designs on their personal lives.
And so, in 1972, they
amended the state Constitution to include a privacy right that is uncannily
fitting for the Internet world. It says merely that privacy is an inalienable
right. But according to contemporary ballot arguments, it "prevents government
and business interests from . . . misusing information gathered for one purpose
in order to serve other purposes or to embarrass us." Sound timely? Sound as if
maybe a Web site that requires your name, address and phone number violates the
California Constitution by reporting the information to, say, an advertising
company without your permission?
Yes it does. And thanks to your
prescient forebears, you have every legal right to stop that from happening.
Trouble is, enforcing the legal right isn't easy. Not many of us could afford a
lawsuit against a thriving dot-com that peddled our personal
information. And with the law of Internet privacy
still undeveloped, not many attorneys would take a shot at such a case.
Which is why it was important that the Boalt Hall School of Law in
Berkeley announced the creation of the Samuelson Law, Technology and Public
Policy Clinic two weeks ago.
Endowed by Boalt professor Pamela Samuelson
and her husband, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Robert Glushko, the clinic will
bring lawsuits, file briefs and support legislation on behalf of consumers who
have had "bad things happen to them in cyberspace," says Samuelson.
The
Internet as super snitch is honest-to-God scary. Probably scarier than anyone
yet realizes. Its ability to give an audience of countless billions an
out-of-context and judgmental snapshot of our eating habits, political views or
tastes in off-color humor is unfathomable. And to restrain the engineering
geniuses and corporate greed-heads who are just discovering the Internet's power
to pry, we need lawyers who can pursue cases establishing the boundaries of our
privacy.
Boundaries that might protect us from the abuse of snooping
devices like Globally Unique Identifiers, or GUIDs. A good example of a GUID
emerged last year, when privacy advocates discovered that the Internet music
player RealJukeBox could tell its parent company, RealNetworks, what songs
customers were listening to. RealNetworks could then match the information to a
number -- or GUID -- that identified the customer.
RealNetworks says it
never used the system to identify customers' music preferences, but the threat
to privacy was clear. "It was an outrageous thing for them to be doing," says
Samuelson.
Another firm, Internet advertising company DoubleClick, has
been snooping on Net-surfers for years. It tags their hard drives with "cookies"
-- electronic markers that help Web sites track cyberspace visits and tailor
advertisements accordingly.
Few people complained about the practice so
long as they remained anonymous. But in November, DoubleClick bought a database
of customer names and buying habits compiled from offline stores and catalogues.
The company was matching that information with online purchases before critics
forced it to stop pending clearer privacy standards.
And on Monday, a
new startup called Predictive Networks provoked an uproar among privacy
advocates with software that builds a profile on people by tracking their
browsing habits.
In the RealNetworks and DoubleClick cases, public
pressure forced the companies to back down. But if they hadn't, lawsuits might
have been necessary, and it's hard to imagine any individual spending time and
money litigating the privacy issues.
That's why the Samuelson clinic
could be significant: It can take the cases that people can't afford on their
own.
And the clinic can do more than just file privacy suits. It can
advise individuals in disputes over the posting of copyrighted material on the
Internet. It can lobby to make sure that proposed Internet laws protect privacy
while allowing consumers free access to information. It can file
friend-of-the-court briefs in lawsuits over crucial trade-secret issues.
It can do all the things that lawyers normally do for clients but it can
do them for free and in an area of the law that is starved for competent
counsel.
The clinic is not the first organization to take up the fight
for consumers' rights in cyberspace. The San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier
Foundation and the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C.,
have been pressing the battle for years.
But the clinic will be the only
group in the Bay Area -- the heart of the high-tech world -- with enough
resources to pursue major cases.
The prevailing attitude among the
digerati seems to be that the battle is already over. Scott McNealy, the CEO of
Sun Microsystems, has been quoted as saying, "You already have zero privacy. Get
over it."
And legislation to curb online spying has gone nowhere. Sen.
Robert Torricelli's recent bill requiring Web sites to ask users' permission
before gathering or selling personal information was beaten back by the
high-tech powers who whined that it would stifle business on the Internet.
Fortunately, Californians had the foresight to create a constitutional
provision that should be a powerful weapon against overly aggressive e-tailers
and others salivating over our private lives. All that's missing are people and
organizations with the strength and skill to use it.
The Samuelson
clinic is a start -- and an encouraging sign that we can pursue the promise of
cyberspace without losing our fundamental rights.
You can reach
Reynolds Holding at holdingr@sfgate.com.
LOAD-DATE: May
8, 2000 
