JUST HOW MUCH WILL YOU SACRIFICE FOR CONVENIENCE?

One of the major driving forces of The Junk Mail Conspiracy is that your convenience in ordering products in this medium far outweighs the challenges to your privacy. You are encouraged to give up all that personal data in return for ease in shopping, and discounts on products. You are assured that your sensitive data is secure. And then comes ChoicePoint in Feb. of 2005, and a snowball effect following that incident ending in ID fraud victims losing $50 billion in 2006. And now Microsoft, along with other online advertising companies, wants to track and analyze all your behavior on the Internet. In a ZDNet.com article, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) wants to restrict this “modeling” of consumer habits. Once again, the ones that want to capture and save all this data forever tell us it provides a “convenience” to the online community. Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy says Microsoft’s tactics have been particularly “egregious.” Apparently MS was trumpeting the fact they would deliver your private information to advertisers and marketers. What’s new?