Judge+on+privacy%3A+Computer+code+trumps+the+law

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US Gov't protecting Sony profits in Australia?: "Despite the High Court ruling in favor of Stevens, the decision was later overturned by the government after the U.S. government pressed it to make legislative amendments to protect Sony's right to restrict where consumers buy its software from."

Does anyone else find it hilarious to see the US Government exerting influence and expending political capital to protect the profits of a foreign corporation?

To the person who ranted "why pick on Google or Yahoo" I guess you don't understand the impact of widespread data collection and data mining. The end result at the corporate level is ultimate discrimination: if a company knows everything about you, they can discriminate against you in many ways that you don't even know about.

The travel industry does it TODAY: if they know you are a business traveler, then you will pay 20-50 percent MORE for services than if you are a tourist. That's a Runzheimer statistic, not a wild guess at the future.

The insurance industry does it TODAY: your insurance rates are based as much on your credit score as it is on your claim history. People with high credit scores make less claims, so they are more profitable customers.

Hiring organizations do it TODAY: Search companies sell your information to potential employers, ranging from "public" information like things you have posted in blogs, Facebook, Youtube, etc., to info you might have though was private, like your search history to cancer or alcoholism sites. Take a lot of prescription pain meds? That information can well be known to a potential employer, insurer, or even a local business who wants to sell to you.

The key to all of this is the breadth and capability of data collection and mining to pull together a bunch of disjointed data points (to you at least) and make a coherent dossier of the data to someone with money (not you). This places individual persons at a disadvantage to corporations designed to exploit you. From a legal perspective this is a fallacy of the "corporation is a legal person" concept, because they enjoy powers that few real people have available to them.; Posted by: terry flores Posted on: 02/22/08 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use