True Believer: It would be a pity if marketers under-estimated the threat to e-commerce being posed by careless handling of web surfers' privacy. Just this past week, a report from a survey sponsored by the California HealthCare Foundation and the Internet Healthcare Coalition estimated that "6.3 million internet users refuse to search for health information online because of privacy, ethical fears" (July 12 PRNewswire story). The internet is such a fantastic source of personal knowledge growth that avoidance of this source due to privacy concerns would be most unfortunate.
Fortunately, industry is waking up to the need to get their act together on handling clients' privacy. For example, the same PRNewswire story states that "Carolyn Gratzer, senior analyst in Cyber Dialogue's Health Practice and co-author of the report . . . [pointed out that] 'Businesses have an opportunity - and an imperative -- to create the highest standards of privacy and security in online healthcare and to educate consumers on the facts about these issues.' "
A July 13 story from Wired News states that "The Internet advertising industry warned its Web colleagues to get their privacy act together because the times, on desktops and in Washington, they are a-changin'. Members of the Internet Advertising Bureau met Wednesday for a privacy forum where a quartet of industry players fired a warning shot at Web companies. The message: People are worried, politicians are aware of it, and laws are coming."
So there's hope that companies will develop strong privacy statements and be aggressive about protecting clients' privacy, if only to protect their long-term interests.

Skeptic: Sorry Charlie, that horse has left the barn and it's hard to see what's going to get it back inside.

True Believer: What's this about a horse and a barn? I'm saying there's hope on the internet privacy front. Must you always rain on the parade?

Skeptic: My dear friend, the horse is peoples' trust in privacy statements. The barn is an area where the trust is high and people feel safe to surf the web sites of companies with strong and believable privacy statements. The horse goes out of the barn when a rapidly declining number of people retain that high level of trust.

True Believer: And you say that's already happening?

Skeptic: Yup!

True Believer: How so?

Skeptic: Look at this. For many months a very big server of banner advert's on web sites pledged solemnly not to link its records of peoples' web surfing behaviour, created through the use tracking cookies, with personal names and addresses and other demographics. Then suddenly last November they announced a change in policy, in connection with a 7 billion-dollar purchase of another company that did give them access to names and addresses they could use to make the linkage.
The change was that they might now do the linkage, not to create dossiers on people, but to develop improved demographic profiles for marketing purposes.

True Believer: But what happened to the solemn pledge they made?

Skeptic: Don't interrupt my argument while I am in full flight.
Now get this --  a famous toy retailer pledged solemnly that it would keep clients' records to itself. It went bankrupt last month, and in the process those client records went on sale to the highest bidder; probably placed on sale by the group brought in to make a fire sale of the dead company's assets on behalf of the creditors.

True Believer: You mean to say that a second high-profile player openly turned the organization's back on a solemn privacy pledge?

Skeptic: I asked you not to interrupt me; but you are getting the point.
When high-profile players demonstrate that they will disregard previous privacy pledges when that seems best in their own judgment, what privacy statement is worth the paper on which it is written?
Now a lot of people may not be asking this question yet; but you just need a few more high-profile players doing this about-face on privacy pledges for Every John Doe to hear about it. And then Every John Doe will ask: "why bother even reading a privacy statement when the issuer will feel free to kick it over at what seems to the issuer to be the right time"?

True Believer: Gawsh! This is serious.

Skeptic: You bet it is!

True Believer: But those high-profile players have employees who earn a million dollars a year because they are so smart! Why would those Smart Guys do such a dumb thing?

Skeptic: (Sigh). Where have you been? Haven't you heard of Business Imperatives?

True Believer: No, and "Business Imperatives" sounds like consultants' jargon, the kind of language you guys like to use to justify charging astronomical fees for a few words of your advice! I have no money to pay you; but maybe you might take pity on a poor person and explain what you mean.

Skeptic: One Business Imperative is competitive pressure. The company that suddenly found itself able to link web-tracking records to names and addresses because of information held by another company it just took over was probably locked in a battle to the death with competing marketing firms.
Regardless of whether their new tricks bring any additional profits to anybody, marketers have to be continually showing off new marketing tricks to would-be or existing clients just to prevent these folks from running off to the competition, who then get to eat their lunch!

True Believer: So, in spite of the fact that their smart employees might have been fully aware of the risks, they saw it as a matter of corporate survival to change policy on linking web-tracking records to names and addresses?

Skeptic: Gee, you can see the light when you try!
Let's get to the toy seller who, contrary to solemn pledges, allegedly put clients records up for sale. This situation is even easier to understand.
Once they declared bankruptcy and a liquidator was brought in to sell assets on behalf of the creditors, they sort of lost control over the assets.
And get this now -- the liquidator never made any pledges to anybody about protecting the client records from sale to third parties!
Meanwhile, having declared bankruptcy and once the creditors called in the liquidators, the company that made the solemn pledge is sort of out of the game. It cannot even sue anyone to ensure protection of the pledge because it has no money.

True Believer: So what you are saying is that in this case, the change of control over the assets left the party making the pledge with no way to honour the pledge?

Skeptic: Now you've got it! And do you know what that means, in the end?

True Believer: I'm getting sick to my stomach with this depressing conversation but tell me anyway.

Skeptic: The only way for your privacy to be truly protected is for the company that made the pledge to be in a position to live up to that pledge no matter what the future holds.
But, my dear friend, only God has that kind of power!
Not even the government does; because you can have a bloody or bloodless coup, which we all have seen in our lifetime, where new guys with a new ideology take over the government!
Therefore, as I said at the beginning, these events where high-profile guys essentially and publicly rip up their privacy pledges tell you that the pledges were not worth the paper on which they were written, and we are going to find more and more people discounting ALL privacy statements when they see high-profile parties behaving in this way.

True Believer: Does it have to come to this?

Skeptic: Look Scoop, I'm afraid so.
You see there are some wonderful things and some tragedies about the human condition.
One tragedy, as we see over and over again in history, is that people are utterly unable to seriously take the interest of their own collectivity into account when they see their individual interests being enhanced by some action they might take.
And so, the people who will destroy the e-commerce Golden Goose are the same people who stand to gain the most from the growth of e-commerce.

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