Stanford Center for Internet and Society

When it comes to Privacy Law, Europe and the U.S. are not on the same page. What is the problem? This is not the place to give an extensive answer, but here is what I think the difference boils down to:

Anyone still in doubt whether user data is valuable? Take a look at the news and learn: User data is worth the double of what Google paid for YouTube –– Google just bought DoubleClick for USD 3.1 bn.

It is a common mantra both of industry’s and consumers’ advocates that legislation related to radio frequency identification ("RFID") should be technology-neutral.

I am not convinced although the mantra has some merits: A tech-specific act is likely to become useless once there is technological improvement. Also, technology specific regulation might lead to unequal treatment. Further, technology specific regulation can lead to a different perception of several categories of data. This might have the undesired effect that some data is looked at to be worthy of protection while other data starts to be overlooked and gets in fact less protection. And this would disregard the choice of the consumer: What can be cool for one, can be a concern for another one. Legislation should give the consumer the tools so he can determine whether he has a privacy concern or not. And technology specific legislation is less likely to operate on this general level.

However, to me it still looks all right to create and apply technology specific rules if one intends to regulate a pervasive technology.

Apple has announced it would offer DRM-free music through iTunes. The offer is limited to the music catalog of one of the Major Labels, EMI.

Customers still can get the DRM-protected songs at the old price. The DRM-free songs are available for an extra price of 30%. In exchange, the consumer (also) gets better file quality.