Power to the data!

Seth Finkelstein, a long-time crusader against online censorship, made what seemed like a jaundiced comment on my recent post Piracy and Privacy. I had raised the possibility that online activists, fresh from their SOPA fight, might now come to the support of efforts to give people more control over the personal information that companies collect and trade online. Will the activists rise up again? I wondered. To which Finkelstein replied: No. Or maybe, they will rise up AGAINST privacy, because they will be fed a line that this is going to Censor The Net. Turns out Finkelstein wasn't being jaundiced. He was being prescient. Shortly after he made his comment, a Harvard Law School blog posted a lathery rant, under the judicious title "More Crap from the E.U.," by Jane Yakowitz, a professor at the Brooklyn Law School. Yakowitz blasted the European Commission's new proposal to strengthen online privacy protections. Europe, she wrote, has been "flailing around" with internet regulation. It has enacted "miserable" policies. The EC's reasoning is "complete and utter hogwash." Its actions are "regressive." Its proposed new directive represents "a misguided attack on the information economy." Goodness. I think Professor Yakowitz must have eaten a bad mussel...