Privacy on the Web: useful links (1998)
This information was produced to accompany the paper Technological Implications for Privacy
written as part of The Tangled Web: Ethical Dilemmas of the
Internet, a 1998 summer Humanities Insitute and conference at
Dartmouth College.
The information below was current in 1998 and is now likely out of date.
Web Sites
Places and products to search for "personal" information, other than typical web search engines:
- Deja News (searching Usenet archives)
- pick someone that you know posts to Usenet, e.g., me
- search for their email address
- click on one of the articles
- click on Author Profile
- now you can see a list of all articles posted by that person
- Products from Intelligent Interactions,
i.e., web data-collection and marketing tools
- Infospace - look people up, get credit reports, etc
- I tried this one, paying $8 for my credit report.
I had to enter my name, birthday, current and previous address,
SSN, employer, 6 digits of some account number,
and one of my credit cards, before they let me have it online. It took about 5-10 minutes.
- Then I tried their "background check" for $139.95, giving only the subject's name and SSN,
and giving only my name and email address (and payment info). This took a bit longer.
Information about web privacy:
Media stories and commentary
Legislation in US Congress
Use Thomas to search the 105th Congress for bill numbers
- S.504 and H.R.1972: Childrens' Privacy Protection and Parental Empowerment Act of 1997
- S.600 and H.R.1813: Personal Information Privacy Act of 1997
- S.1368: Medical Information Privacy and Security Act
- H.R. 2281
(passed): WIPO treaty, which has a possible side effect of outlawing
the removal or blocking of cookies
And, Gore's July 1998 announcement about a new privacy initiative: