http://news.com.com/2010-1032-5199224.html Gmail and its discontents April 26, 2004, 4:00 AM PT By Declan McCullagh The sharp reaction to Google's announcement of the Gmail service earlier this month underscored a deep divide in the tactics and strategies employed by Internet privacy activists. Privacy groups like the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., and London-based Privacy International denounced Gmail as an intrusion that must not be permitted to exist. ... The objections lodged against Gmail are telling, because they illuminate two different views about how to respond to new technologies. The protechnology view says customers of a company should be allowed to make up their own mind and that government regulation should be a last resort. Privacy fundamentalists, on the other hand, insist that new services they believe to be harmful should be banned, even if consumers are clamoring for them. "Whether it's on this issue or a host of other issues, the de facto position of many privacy groups--EPIC being the lead--is antitechnology," said Rob Atkinson, vice president of the Progressive Policy Institute. "It's to shut new IT technologies down before we use them." Atkinson, by the way, is no Newt Gingrich-voting Reaganaut. His institute is part of the Democratic Leadership Council, once chaired by then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton in 1991. [...remainder snipped...] _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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