Errors of Omission
It's not just the laws Congress has passed that get us in trouble. Sometimes the problem lies with the major technology issues that our senators and representatives have ignored. On the next few pages are five technology problems desperately in need of a law.
1. Priority: Privacy
As our world grows ever more connected, the amount of data any one company (or government agency) collects about us also increases, as do the new threats to your privacy. But outside of a few heavily regulated fields such as the financial and health-care industries, few rules exist to govern the collection, storage, sale, accuracy, and security of that data.
Google knows tremendous amounts about us, and it's only going to learn more as increasing numbers of users sign up for its services and as its proposed acquisition of advertising firm DoubleClick gives it access to a huge new treasure trove of databases. Nothing but Google's own goodwill can keep the company from storing that data until your grandchildren have kids or selling that data to all and sundry. (Sure, Google's privacy policy promises some protections, but only until the company decides to change its policy.)
GPS services know where you are anytime you have your device on, and could be used to tell how fast you're traveling--a fact your auto-insurance agent would likely want to know. And mobile marketers want access to your location information so they can send you ads for restaurants and shops in your immediate area. Again, no rules exist to spell out what these companies can and can't do with the data they're collecting about you.
We need a comprehensive set of standards for how these different companies handle our data and what they can do with it. We also need laws that allow us to review and challenge data about us, just as we can with financial data now. And we should have a national law requiring companies and government agencies that collect and store sensitive information to notify us quickly if our data is lost or stolen.
2. Consumer Digital Media Rights
When we buy a song, a video, or any other piece of entertainment, we should be able to move it around to our various devices, take it with us when we travel, and share it within our homes. Such capabilities used to fall under the concept of "fair use," but with the DMCA and Hollywood's fears about peer-to-peer piracy, fair use has come under attack.
Congress should end the debate once and for all, by giving consumers a clear set of guidelines about what they can and cannot do with content they have bought. And those rules should preserve the commonsense minimum set of rights that we used to have, and not require us to pay every time we want to enjoy our media on a different device. 'Nuff said.
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