an idea that could revolutionize privacy

In this internet age of instant connectivity and 24/7 data availability, we often times give alot of information about ourselves to various companies, and sometimes they pay for the data on you as well. It can be kinda scary to think that some internet company (lets take Yahoo for example) not only probably knows your name, age, address and telephone number, but they probably know what things you like to search for hence they know your preferences for foods, cars, readings, political slants and maybe what size shoe you wear.

Unfortunately, I see all this data mining these companies do as an ever-increasing extension into daily life and that the trend won't soon reverse itsself despite whateve ethical concerns there are about it. Therefore I propose the following solution. Why not have legislation crafted to allow regular joes to either get for free or buy for a small fee a report by these large companies so you can find out specifically what kind of information they have on you.

Now, the idea is only half-baked yet, but I'm hoping with some input we can turn this into something real. Here are my concerns: where do we draw the line on which businesses are forced to offer this? I think you want to draw economic and categorical lines here because not every small website or locally-owned business could easily comply.. I'm thinking more along the lines of the Googles and Yahoos of the world... even banks and advertisers too. Another concern is that of privacy. Contrary? No, not exactly - but people need to be protected from having Jane order Joe's "personal data collection report from XYZ company"... the recent problem where anyone can buy other peoples' cell phone records illustrates my point. I still think that these records are private and confidential and that companies should not be allowed to sell or release them to third parties without express consent.

In the end, this isn't going to change privacy or even give you more privacy or shelter from data collection methods, but at least you can see what companies know about you making the idea slightly less scary. Also, this "open disclosure" of records to individuals might have an added benefit of making companies not want to collect intimate details of a person's life and could make the companies who collect very little data on people more favorable for private people with which to do business.


Being somewhat of a privacy freak myself makes me wonder why we don't have more laws in place to protect our privacy, yet give us this access to data about us.