

Holding Companies Accountable For Privacy Breaches - hornokplease
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/should-companies-be-accountable-for-privacy-breaches/

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ares2012
This is a great line: "If you can’t protect it, don’t collect it."

Coming up soon: Amazon Web Protection Services

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yanw
Alarmists and lawyers (with help from the panic perpetuating media) thrive in
this climate:

" _Christina Gagnier, a lawyer specializing in privacy and copyright, said in
an interview last week that there wasn’t enough legislation to protect people
online._ "

And to hell with innovation, lets make more laws that insure lawyers get paid
more.

If things were only depended on lawyers and privacy fundamentalists we would
still be living in the middles ages (EPIC contested that Gmail was illegal
when launched).

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gloob
Perhaps you've just overstated your point, but could you provide any evidence
supporting the statements that (1) stronger privacy laws would cause all
innovation to stop, or (2) stronger privacy laws would cause us to revert to a
1200 AD level of technological development.

Edit: To make my point less pedantic: your argument, as you have currently
phrased it, is every bit as alarmist as those you disagree with, just in the
opposite direction. It's like appealing for calm by calling the people you
disagree with whores. At best, such a tactic undermines itself.

Actual discussion:

It is self-evidently true that fines for data breaches would discourage
companies from allowing more data breaches. You have countered this by saying
such a policy would harm innovation. The snarky response would be that harming
innovation in the realm of data breaches is exactly what we want to do. A less
snarky response would be to ask you to provide any evidence that investing in
proper network security would have made Sony less innovative in any measurable
way.

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pavel_lishin
He didn't say that we'd revert; we'd simply never move forward.

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gloob
Fair enough. Ignore my second question then. Can you point me to a credible
argument for the idea that all innovation relies on privacy breaches, or that
only companies who hold customer data are capable of innovation, or some other
causal link that would make "strong privacy laws -> no innovation ever" hold?

~~~
pavel_lishin
> Can you point me to a credible argument for the idea that all innovation
> relies on privacy breaches

Only if you point me to anyone making the case that innovation relies on
privacy breaches.

