Data With Businesses example essay topic

1. PRIVACY WANTED 32. THE REGULATION - EU DIRECTIVE AND THE CAN SPAM ACT 32.1. Safe Harbor 42.1.

1 Opt-in or Opt-out? 41. Privacy wanted Most of us have already asked ourselves who all owns the information about our name, our address and telephone number or the amount we keep in our checking account. Instinctively we feel that our names and other personal information belong to us and dislike the thought that someone else could profit from marketing them. However, it is the obvious reality that it happens very often.

It is enough to look at our mailboxes to see big amounts of unsolicited mails with various kinds of offers for a number of products and services. Clearly, customer information is seen as a business asset that is acquired and utilized aggressively. To understand the dimensions of the privacy debate, it is valuable to remember that e-commerce allows marketers to advertise goods and services ever more accurately, in an increasingly personalized manner. Rather than relying on demographic statistics that lump consumers into broad target groups, or collating credit card purchasing data into marketing profiles, the Internet allows businesses to track profiles and information provided directly by the consumer - and then create automated marketing programs tailored specifically to that customer. By monitoring clicks made on the Web and leaving behind 'cookies' on the computer to help the system remember an individual, marketers can gather a startling amount of personal information with which to sell goods and services. There is a lot of talk about the desired level of privacy regarding the wide range of customer data held by businesses.

The consumers are becoming more displeased by marketers buying and selling their personal information, while at the same time the rise of e-commerce has raised fears about this issue, due to the ease with which all types of sensitive data may be gathered, copied, shared, and misused via the Internet. In response, the European governments have passed tough laws regulating how businesses manage and share personal information - including a prohibition on sharing data with businesses located in countries that fail to provide adequate data protection. Given the far less restrictive policies on privacy in the US, many in the business community feared that the new laws would effect e-commerce between the US and Europe. 2. The Regulation - EU Directive and the CAN Spam Act The view on how much protection consumers deserve regarding their data and how much control should they be allowed in the way businesses use that data depends on where one lives.

There are substantial differences between the US and the EU. The US prefers to give businesses a maximum of freedom within the constraints of existing business law. For the most part, the US relies on an "opt-out" philosophy of privacy, where the matter is regulated by the US CAN Spam Act. It is essentially an "opt-out" law, whereby recipients must reply to emails in order to unsubscribe from handling of their data for commercial purposes and allowing consumers the right to request that their data be excluded from sales to third parties. The EU Privacy Directive specifies that individuals should have to "opt-in", that is give consent, before they can be sent commercial emails. An exemption to the opt-in consent rule states that where an existing customer relationship exists, it is acceptable to continue to send unsolicited, commercial e-mail until the addressee requests that the communications stop.

Some important conditions are attached to this exemption. Businesses must have obtained the customer's e-mail address in course of a sale or the negotiations for the sale of a product or service, and must only continue to market their own similar goods and services. They must have obtained the address fairly in accordance with the existing data protection regime and must always offer an opt-out facility free of charge. The Directive also requires that senders of commercial e-mail do not conceal their identity, and that they always provide a valid return address to which the addressee can send 'unsubscribe' requests. 2.1. Safe Harbor clear problem is that the vast majority of spam originates in the US and is therefore governed by the "opt-out" principle rather than an 'opt-in' principle in which businesses must specifically get permission from each individual before selling or releasing personal data. Responding to the fears of data abuse, the two sides have negotiated a truce in the privacy war, by creating the 'Safe harbor' program to allow companies that provide certain privacy safeguards to receive personal information from the UK and Europe.

However, the subsidiaries, representative offices and branches in the EU are still required to comply with the rigid data protection standards laid down by the EU Directive. The Data Protection Principles are listed below the body in list a, below. To more even more thoroughly regulate the transfer of personal data to other countries, the Commission approved new standard clauses for data transfers to non-EU countries which took effect on 7.1. 2005.2. 1.1 Opt-in or Opt-out? An Internet based community named perfectly private. com recommends "opt-in" as the preferred method for personal data handling.

When customers control what they receive from you through "opt-in" offers rather than "opt-out" negative options; they appreciate the good service. "Opt-in" marketing builds stronger customer trust and longer lasting, more profitable relationships, they say. If a company uses negative options or "opt-out" offers exclusively, perfectly private. com encourages considering transitioning marketing efforts to "opt-in". MessageLabs, a leading provider of managed services for business E-Mail Security, mentions some conditions for spam legislation to work, the essential being that Accordingly, it needs to have three basic components: 1. Distinction needs to be made between spammers and legitimate marketers. 2.

Legitimate marketers need to be unequivocally distinguishable from spammers. 3. The consumer must have some control over the use of his personal data. Their opinion is that the EU legislation is unlikely to be wholly effective in the fight against spam, but it is a foundation block that can hopefully be built upon as an aid to spam prevention. List a The Eight Data Protection Principles are: 1. Data must be processed fairly and lawfully with the express consent of the individual unless processing is necessary to comply with a contract with that individual.

2. Data must be obtained for one or more specified and lawful purposes and may not be further processed in any manner incompatible with those purposes. 3. Data shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purpose for which the data is processed. 4. Data shall be accurate and kept up-to-date.

5. Data shall not be kept for longer than is necessary. 6. Data shall be processed in accordance with the rights of the data subject under the Act. 7. Appropriate technical and organisational measures should be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of data as well as against accidental loss, destruction or damage to such data.

8. Data shall not be transferred outside the European Economic Area unless the recipient country provides an adequate level of protection in line with the European Directive on data protection.