When Push Comes to Shove: The Potential to Protect Personal Privacy and Preferences Via P3P, Digital Personas, and X.500

Owen D. Ambur, University of Maryland University College, May 2, 1999

The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

An axiom in the law is that "your right to swing your fist stops at the tip of my nose." You have the freedom ... to act as you please so long as your action does not interfere with my right to personal security.

- The Washington Post (1996, October 17)

There is an old saying that "your right to swing your fist stops at my nose" and consequently we refuse to passively sit back and grumble about spam without making any constructive effort to improve the situation.
- Todd Michel McComb

In an article entitled "When push, comes to shove: Push technology is all the rage," Blundon (1997) declares: "... if you are not using a push product today, you probably will be in the future..." In support of his premise, he cites the following factors:

The broadcasting model of the television age achieved maximum profitability by identifying the largest viewing audience and selling advertising to vendors of mass-market products.
Despite a large investment in research, developing a demographic profile of this audience has always been rudimentary. In the broadcast media, this has led to programming for the least common denominator.
Cable television has increased the ability of advertisers to reach a select audience, but good demographics are still hard to come by.
Most push companies provide a proprietary client environment that users can download without charge. The companies generate revenue by providing many channels of information, gathering demographic information from their end users, and selling carefully targeted advertising.

Only half-kidding, another similarly entitled article suggests: "Humans are not born consumers. Only by intrusive advertising, and manipulated news can people be turned into consumers." (Leith, 1997) Such assertions give many people cause for pause. Indeed, Ignatius (1999) reports the results of a poll that found: 88 percent of those surveyed were concerned about threats to their personal privacy; 82 percent felt consumers had lost control over how companies collect and use their personal information, and 78 percent believed that businesses ask for too much personal information.

Noting that "the first war on the Internet has been for our attention," Walker (1999) asserts, "The next war will be more personal, more profound. It will be for our data souls - those ever-expanding electronic dossiers about our likes and dislikes ..." And the stakes are high, not only for individuals but also for those whose livelihood depends upon the use of such information.

Singletary (1999) recounts one estimate that puts the annual revenue for the direct-marketing industry - "the guys who get paid to peddle our data" - at $1.5 billion.⁽¹⁾ And that is just for direct forms of marketing. Farhi (1999) reports that market research is a $6 billion-a-year business in support of direct and other forms of marketing. Wells Branscomb (1994, p. 11) notes that:

Bulk mail comprised about 40 percent of the U.S. Postal Service's volume.
The average America will spend "the better part of a year of his or her life sorting through it."⁽²⁾
The average consumer is on approximately 100 mailing lists and in at least 50 databases.

However, McAllister (1999, February 16) notes that for the period from October 10 to November 6, 1998, the Postal Service for the first time delivered more advertising mail than first-class letters. Frank and Cook (1995) cite a cite a figure of $50 billion spent by the top 100 U.S. advertisers in 1991, and they go on to say:

Social critics have long identified advertising as perhaps the largest and most conspicuous example of pure social waste in a market economy. This is an extreme view that ignores the many potentially beneficial effects of advertising, such as providing useful product information and helping finance radio, television, and print media. But even the most enthusiastic proponent of advertising must concede that the private incentives to engage in it are larger than the social ones... If advertising and promotional expenditures were curtailed in every industry, there would be both costs and benefits. But, as the logic of the positional arms race makes clear, the collective gains from such a cutback would surely exceed the collective losses. (pp. 141 & 142) Those with a minimal degree of self-esteem might prefer to think of themselves not only as being capable but also more fully qualified than anyone else to determine their own desires. Rather than subjugating their preferences to artificial manipulation borne on the monetary motivations of a vast conspiracy of self-promoters, most adult Americans should be capable of exercising the free will to determine their own thoughts. Moreover, regardless of how narrowly market research enables the snake oil salesmen to cast their incantations, they can never approach the acuity with which individuals can attend to their own needs and wishes - even if the vendors have 20/20 vision and perfect alignment of interest as well as good faith efforts are assumed.

A somewhat more balanced view was voiced by someone who has a great deal of experience with the tradeoffs involved. In directing agency heads to review agency practices regarding collection or disclosure of personal information in systems of records, the President (Clinton, 1998) framed the issue as follows:

⁽³⁾

Increased computerization of Federal records permits this information to be used and analyzed in ways that could diminish individual privacy in the absence of additional safeguards. As development and implementation of new information technologies create new possibilities for the management of personal information, it is appropriate to reexamine the Federal Government's role in promoting the interests of a democratic society in personal privacy and the free flow of information.⁽⁴⁾

As our Europeans strive to create a more perfect union, they have taken a different tack, more befitting their cultural traditions and economic imperatives. Instead of focusing on governmental records, Directive 95/46/EC addresses the procedures by which private enterprises gather, maintain, and use personal data. As Swire and Litan (1999) and others have noted, the directive threatens to disrupt international commerce and highlights the tension between the rights of individuals and the interests of economic enterprise.⁽⁵⁾ Among the most cogent of Swire and Litan's observations are the following:

In the United States there has been growing realization in setting policy that market imperfections must be compared with the imperfections of government or other solutions. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. (pp. 8 & 9)

... self-regulation may be drafted with little concern for those outside a given industry, those who are not part of the "self." Privacy advocates fear that self-regulation will not be strict enough and may in practice end up resembling an unregulated market. American proponents of self-regulation respond that firms that agree to self-regulation but do not follow through on their commitments open themselves to private suits for misrepresentation and fraud as well as actions by the Federal Trade Commission and the states to redress unfair trade practices. These remedies, proponents argue, may be even more effective enforcement tools that those deployed by any European-style privacy bureau. Skeptics respond that privacy self-regulation in the United States has not been nearly as strict as European laws. (p. 12)

In the European view, companies should not be able to ship data to places where the information will be used in ways contrary to European law and the expectations of European citizens... common sense suggests that ... organizations should have a way to share information between their European and other operations when good privacy protections are in place. (p. 17)

... transfers are permitted wherever there is "unambiguous consent" in advance by an individual. Unambiguous consent, however, can be interpreted in many ways, depending upon the setting. (p. 18) [In the view of European officials] consent to the proposed transfer requires consent to the particular uses to which the data will be put. (p. 34)

The inclusion of [the word] "identifiable" means that the Directive applies even when a person's name is not listed, but when the person can be identified by reference to an identification number or by other means. (p. 26)

In the United States, the right to use the public commons to voice one's views is a well established principle, and the use of "broadcast" media to vend wares has served the interests of consumers quite well. However, as technology shrinks the boundaries of the "global village," the risk of tragedies, great and small, grows in the commons. The balanced has tipped too far in the direction of the conglomerates and away from the rights of the individual. It is one thing to put up with the Fuller brush man at one's door. It is quite another when commercial pitchmen and propagandists are able by automated means to ring one's phone, steal one's on-line "air" time by force-feeding graphical ads that prance on one's computer monitor, fill one's E-mail in-box with junk, and trace one's cyber tracks - all the while spending little, if any of their own, personal time in order to do so. Even as the nuclear bomb provided the means for mutual assured destruction, it is MAD to think that dueling avatars and agents might be permitted to engage in a dance of death to personhood while overloading communications channels with ersatz, manufactured shadows of individuality.⁽⁶⁾

On the other hand, there is nothing inherent in the characteristics of the technology itself requiring that the interests of mass assemblages, hucksters, and snake oil salesmen or even those with the best of intentions be favored over the rights of the enlightened individual him/herself. With technology appropriately applied, the reverse will be true. The golden ages of personal liberty and economic efficiency can and should emerge and prevail simultaneously.

Hagel and Singer (1999) have outlined a vision of how third party vendors can ad value to the Net by helping customers make the rules and thus shape the markets. They highlight the impetus for the new value proposition, as follows:

Behind the continuing invasion of consumer privacy and the constant expansion of product choices lurks an unrecognized truth about consumers and marketers: their wants and needs are misaligned... the customer's demand for selection and comparison is sharply at odds with a deep or exclusive relationship with any one vendor. (p. 12)

Hagel and Singer assert that "consumers have never been more alone" - despite receiving 3,000 marketing messages each day - and that the 2 percent response rate on junk mail and catalogs means that 98 percent of what consumers receive is irrelevant to their needs and interests. (p. 7) To alleviate the misalignment and inefficiencies in the current marketing paradigm, Hagel and Singer assert that infomediaries will arise who neither own nor sell customer information but merely act as custodians or agents on behalf of their clients, helping them to optimize the value they receive from vendors. (p. 22) They suggest:

A "consumer agent" could get to know clients' wants, needs, and preferences - as well as their disposable income and demographic profile - and could use this knowledge (as well as knowledge of the vendors) to create a kind of "reverse market" each time the client wants to buy something. (In contrast to conventional markets, in which vendors seek out and often have the upper hand over customers, customers seeking out and extracting value from vendors characterize reverse markets.) (p. 25) Hagel and Singer note that software agents have thus far proved disappointing - due, among other things, to the lack of standards and high-quality information upon which to act. (p. 27) They suggest that infomediaries will give customers incentive to provide such information by supplying them with a "privacy kit" that accomplishes two objectives:

Denying access to the consumer's name and address (E-mail and snail mail).
Creating bargaining power for clients.

And they aver that, once privacy is assured, infomediaries will "begin to assemble an information portrait of their clients ... [l]argely by observing what clients do during their on-line sessions." (p. 30) However, they also acknowledge that the idea of having an infomediary watching its clients' on-line behavior may be "frightening" to some and that clients should be given the opportunity to switch off the software at any time. (p. 31) Indeed, they admit: "The challenge for the infomediary will be to assure customers that [their] profiles will be protected and used only to advance the interests of the customers, subject to explicit directives from customers regarding privacy." (p. 33)

While this author does not tremble in fear at the prospect of Big Brother watching, neither does he accept cookies, except on rare and discrete occasions when the value of doing so is apparent. Moreover, he recognizes that his lack of fear stems from having grown up in an environment where Big Brother was not watching and conspiring against him. (Nor has he given others any justifiable need to do so.) On the other hand many people have not been so fortunate (or discreet). Thus, as close as Hagel and Singer may have come to outlining a new and better regime, it seems that they have missed the mark in assuming that consumers will feel comfortable trading a passel of nettlesome "little brothers" for one big one, who like all of us are still motivated in the final analysis by self-interest, however enlightened it may be. Nevertheless, setting aside for the moment that basic and potentially fatal flaw in their logic, the following aspects of Hagel and Singer's business case are also worthy of note:

The value proposition of the infomediary will be to maximize the value of its assets for its clients, consistent with their privacy preferences, through a range of profile-based services. (p. 33)
The infomediary will construct a filter to review incoming commercial E-mail and automatically weed out unsolicited messages that do not match the needs or preferences of its clients.⁽⁷⁾ (p. 33)
If customers desire, the infomediary will solicit bids from relevant vendors. (p. 34)
The infomediary will also sell its clients' willingness to receive advertisements and other marketing messages from vendors. (p. 35)
The infomediary will also be able to capture detailed information profiles about vendors as a by-product of transaction activity conducted through infomediary services, thus, compiling a "mini-Consumer Reports".⁽⁸⁾ (p. 39)
The unaccounted-for intrusion cost to consumers has created a backlash that makes infomediation - or government regulation - inevitable. (p. 42)
Vendors will see their cost of "customer acquisition" - for many companies their highest marketing cost - significantly decline.⁽⁹⁾ They will also reduce churn and increase cross-selling, while gaining more cost-effective insight into opportunities for product enhancements and customization. (pp. 42 & 43)

In his book entitled "The Loyalty Effect," Reichheld addressed the latter point as follows:

The second big advantage loyalty leaders enjoy in coping with change is their ability to align the objectives of different members of the business system... The secret to alignment is partnership, and the secret to partnership is compensating each partner with a shared interest in the value he or she helps to create... Loyalty leaders have found that they can most effectively manage every one of a business's constituencies - customers, employees, and investors - through partnership. (p. 287)

That's all well and good, but assuming that it is true, what does it mean with respect to the tradeoffs between privacy and creating value for consumers in a supply chain? First, and most importantly, both partnership as well as "private" enterprise are grounded intrinsically in the free and open exchange of value. In the ideal case, there is absolutely no room for imbalance, much less coercion, deceit, or subterfuge. Values exchanged are exactly equivalent, based upon full and complete knowledge of all relevant factors. Information extraneous to the immediate and direct values being exchanged has no place in the transaction or any of the circumstances surrounding it. Should information somehow come to be known to either or both parties, it is not allowed to affect the transaction in any way.

However, partnership implies a deeper and broader understanding among the partners than exists in a common, arm's-length transaction between buyers and sellers. Implicit in such understanding is the notion that one partner may profit disproportionately in any particular transaction but that, overall, both will gain more by taking advantage of the partnership than if the opportunity were to be forgone. On the other hand, practically speaking, in the real world, the ability of individuals and organizations to sustain such "understandings" is limited.

The farther any business relationship strays from accounting for the exchange of equal value in distinct, clearly defined, and/or relatively small transactions, the greater the chance for failure. Moreover, the risk is greatly compounded as the number of "partners" grows. Indeed, at a very low number, perhaps no more than two or three, the quality of the relationship may render it a "partnership" in name only. Of course, extenuating factors such as blood or social relationships also affect business relationships, positively or negatively. However, even where large non-monetary values are present, the degree of imbalance that can be tolerated is finite. In the global village of the cyber world, to twist a phrase, the following cautionary note might be applied in recognition of the natural limitations on true partnership: "Beware of 'partners' bearing gifts."

In his discussion of "what it will take to inhabit the twenty-first-century of winning companies," Ostroff (1999) says certain characteristics elicit virtually unanimous agreement. Foremost among them is an "almost single-minded dedication to the customer." In themes similar to Reichheld, Ostroff notes:

Instant communication and technological marvels have given today's consumers more options than ever before. In this intensely competitive environment - where success is measured with a global yardstick - failure to make customers the center of a company's orbit exacts a heavy toll... The horizontal organization seeks to satisfy both "internal" and "external" customers. In effect, it removes much of the opposition between these two groups. (p. 61) Again, however, stripping away the rhetoric and reaching down to fundamental principles, what do these words truly mean? Ostroff hints at some of the answers in an interview published in Government Executive magazine (1999):

However, most organizations are going to end up with mixed structure, retaining a functional organizational structure in those areas where detailed technical expertise is critical.

Ostroff's assertion regarding the retention of functional organizational structures where technical expertise is critical encompasses some interesting implications - particularly for Federal agencies, but also for the theory and practice of the "firm" in general. By law, Federal agencies are supposed to identify functions that are not "inherently governmental in nature" - for potential termination or outsourcing to private vendors.⁽¹⁰⁾

Likewise, current management trends call for single-minded focus on the organization's core competencies and capabilities, in which it may have a competitive advantage in adding value to a supply chain leading to customers. Extension of these principles to their logical extreme would mean that all that would be left of any organization would be only those elements for which it has particular functional expertise. All other necessary transactions would be outsourced and managed by virtual organizations. Indeed, Ostroff highlights:

[Information technology is] extremely important in a horizontal organization. Information technology enables people to be connected within and without organizations; it captures expert knowledge and makes it available to people throughout the organization ... It would be somewhat ironic if the push to flatten hierarchies had the unintended effect of reinforcing the persistence and strength of internal organizational structures based upon narrow functional expertise. However, "upside down" thinking often offers insight that is not otherwise apparent, and well known is the power and beauty of Judo as force is redirected against itself. After all, what is the point of an organization if not to perform functions that individuals cannot accomplish on their own? That being the case, from the perspective of the individual, why would anyone participate in any organization that either: a) did something other than perform such functions, or b) tried to commandeer their personal data so as to profit from it at their expense?⁽¹¹⁾

Be that as it may, in point of fact, Ostroff still has not reduced the problem to its primitive in terms of information technology. Doing so involves not only redefining the "organization" but also, more importantly, the "individual".⁽¹²⁾ When a truly customer-focused orientation is applied, organizations become properties of individuals, rather than the reverse. (See Ambur, 1997, May.)

More specifically, in the context of information technology and systems, organizational data becomes part of a worldwide set of distributed databases owned, operated, and controlled by individuals. That is, organizations become attributes of the people who are their stakeholders.⁽¹³⁾ By contrast, in the traditional paradigm, people - that is, their data surrogates - are considered to be property of the organizations. By turning the paradigm on its head, instead of worrying about "acquiring" customers, organizations can be freed to focus on the purposes - which is to say the functions - for which they were formed.

In the short run, the role of intermediaries will be to assist individuals acquire the organizations that best meet their needs and desires. However, in the long run, the infomediaries themselves will be disintermediated as the distributed worldwide directory - managed by all of us - assumes their role in establishing the "connections" desired by individuals. Each and every one of us will own and control access to our own personal data, and we will also "acquire" our own business and social organizational relationships. Such are the shades not only of truly free enterprise but also of truly participatory democracy.

In the future, standing between individuals and the products and services they value is a job for which no one need apply. As the saying goes, positioned in front of a TV, a person becomes "a better door than a window." However, in the digital world that constitutes the market square of the global village, neither a door nor a window nor even a "portal" is required for entry to the concourse of values to be shared and exchanged. Wells Branscomb notes:

What most of us want is to receive the kind of information in which we have a special interest, and to receive it at a time and place of our own choosing. [But] what we get is a daily deluge of undifferentiated advertisements out of which we are often unable to find that one piece of information that might interest us. (pp. 21 & 22) Dickinson (1998, pp. 33 & 34) argues that the vast majority of existing systems have been badly designed and particularly that they have been poorly partitioned, leading to such "business problems" as:

Slow response to customer needs - because the separate systems wait on each other.
Inflexibility in the face of external and internal change - because processing and data are fragmented across systems.
Unnecessarily high costs of doing business - because the organization expends effort and capital in support of systems instead of the systems supporting the organization.
Duplicated processing - because one system receiving data from another may not "trust" the source system's accuracy and repeat some of its processing (e.g., validation) out of self-defense.
Duplicated Data - because individuals and computer systems tend to have their own redundant sets of data accessible for their processing (coupled with expensive or no consistency checks to support this duplication), individual data elements up to whole files are duplicated.

Dickinson believes that poor partitioning, based upon historical factors, is the biggest obstacle to becoming a customer-focused organization, and that the first step in creating such an organization is to "dis-cover" the underlying business process. (pp. 35 & 36) However, in his brief discussion of "data ownership," he belies a true customer focus by suggesting that "people or job titles don't own data any more than do computer programs." Instead, he posits the ethereal and somewhat disjointed notion that "business event partitions own data" but, at the same time, "it's important to realize that the organization is the ultimate owner of its data." (p. 186) Dickinson also asserts, "The world-wide Information Super Highway would be a tragic waste if all it did was connect every organization's bad (non-engineered) systems and inaccurate data." (p. 14)

It is unfortunate that the author of such a well-named book as "Creating Customer Focused Organizations" misses such a fundamental point as the fact that the customer rightfully owns his or her own data. Any organization with the interests of "the customer" truly foremost in mind will structure itself around its customers' data, and by failing to note as much, Dickinson is perpetuating the very problem he purports to want to solve. His myopia is doubly distressing because each of the five business problems that he identifies so clearly supports the need for a true customer focus.

To understand what customer-focus truly means and how such a new and improved vision will come to be, let's consider three related initiatives that are beginning to show the way - P3P, digital personas, and the international directory standard, X.500.

The purpose of the Platform for Personal Privacy Preferences (P3P) is summarized "in a nutshell" as follows:

P3P gives users the ability to make informed decisions regarding their Web experience and their ability to control the use of their information. Sites can use P3P to increase the level of confidence users place in their services, as well as improve the quality of the services offered, the customization of content, and simplify site access. (Marchiori et al.)

Among the "guiding principles" set forth by Faith Cranor (1998, July) for P3P are the following:

P3P has been designed to promote privacy and trust on the Web by enabling service providers to disclose their information practices, and enabling individuals to make informed decisions about the collection and use of their personal information.

P3P user agents work on behalf of individuals to reach agreements with service providers about the collection and use of personal information.

Trust is built upon the mutual understanding that each party will respect the agreement reached.

Service providers should preserve trust and protect privacy by applying relevant laws and principles of data protection and privacy to their information practices.

[S]ervice providers and P3P implementers should recognize and address the special concerns surrounding children's privacy.

Users should be given the ability to make meaningful choices about the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information.

Users should retain control over their personal information and decide the conditions under which they will share it.

The principles suggest that service providers should⁽¹⁴⁾:

Obtain informed consent prior to the collection and use of personal information.

Use information only for the stated purpose and retain it only as long as necessary.

Ensure that information is accurate, complete, and up-to-date.

Disclose accountability and means for recourse.

Protect users' personal information with reasonable security safeguards in keeping with the sensitivity of the information.

Use appropriate trusted protocols for the secure transmission of data.

Additionally, the principles say that user agents should:

Transfer personal information only to sites with which the user has reached an agreement authorizing such transfers or when authorized by the user.

Be usable without requiring the user to store user personal information as part of the installation or configuration process.

Act only on behalf of the user according to the preferences specified by the user.

Provide mechanisms for protecting the personal information that users store in their P3P data repositories.

Use appropriate trusted protocols for the secure transmission of data.

Warn users when an insecure transport mechanism is being used.

The statement of principles notes that P3P itself does not include security mechanisms but is intended to be used with tools that meet such requirements. Also, explicitly excluded from the definition of "personal information" to be protected is "information exchanged in the course of interactions inherent to the operation of the HTTP protocol or related protocols."⁽¹⁵⁾ Finally, "service provider" is defined as: "The person or organization that offers information, products, or services from a Web site, collects information, and is responsible for the representations made in a practice statement."

In summarizing the requirements for a P3P query language, Faith Cranor (1998, November) noted:

The goal of the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) project is to enable users to exercise preferences over web sites' privacy practices. P3P applications will allow users to be informed about web site practices, delegate decisions to their computer agent when they wish, and tailor relationships with specific sites. The P3P1.0 working draft ... specifies the protocol for exchanging P3P information between web sites and user agents, and a vocabulary for sites to use to describe their privacy practices. In discussing the European Directive, Swire and Litan (pp. 12 & 13) cite P3P as one technical approach to the problem. Specifically, they note:

[P3P] is a technical standard for creating privacy while browsing on the World Wide Web... The P3P standard ... builds privacy rules into the software code of the user and the Web site. To a large extent P3P is self-regulatory because industry groups are taking the lead in drafting the standard. P3P is also market based; a principal goal is to encourage Web sites to adopt good privacy practices to attract more users. Finally, P3P at least potentially has a government component. The rules are being drafted in part to let users choose to have the level of protection offered by the EU Data Protection Directive. In the future the European countries might make the government component more prominent, perhaps by requiring users to set their software to the Directive's specifications. As suggested by Hagel and Singer, a number of vendors are beginning to offer software and services through which individuals can begin to define and control their own "digital personas". Rubin (in Schwartz) highlights some of the vendors and their products, as follows:

Jotter, a new desktop tool bar, allows users to employ an automatic form for shopping online, helps remind users of their ID and password and locates privacy policies on Web sites so that users can see how a company or organization handles personal data. The company is located in Mesa, Arizona, and the software can be downloaded free.

Lumeria hides individually identifiable data and then allows customers to charge companies to see it. The El Cerrito, California, company believes that if personal information is valuable to businesses then they should pay for it. The free portion of the new service will place users on a "do not contact" list for direct marketers. Lumeria also allows users to surf anonymously through technology that provides inaccurate "cookie" information to Web sites.

Persona by PrivaSeek of Louisville, Colorado, will allow consumers to surf anonymously but also "sell" their information in exchange for discounts at Web sites. PrivaSeek will get a commission on the transactions.

DigitalMe, from Novell, stores a surfer's personal information and uses it to automatically fill out forms at Web sites, showing the user before the form is submitted. The software will keep track of passwords and names used from site to site.

Founded in 1998, PrivaSeek claims to be the "the world's first consumer infomediary dedicated to establishing a new global consumer-centric marketplace." They crystallize the case for their service as follows: "Since the dawn of marketing, corporations have been paying top dollar for consumers' personal information. PrivaSeek is the first company to recognize that it is the individual, not the corporation that should be reaping the benefits of the sale of this information. It's your Business."

Lumeria cites as its foundation the principle that "the most valuable part of computing is your personal information. And that your information needs to be safe, well-guarded, and yet easy for you to access." They say their software can increase the effectiveness of the Net in connecting users to the information they need as well as to other people - in order "to enable collaboration, negotiation, commerce, interpersonal relations, learning, entertainment, and community." They note that companies routinely capture personal information and consider it to be their "commercial property". Lumeria says its "SuperProfile profiling technology will allow people to take control of their own personal information on the Net - even to make money from that information, if that's what they want." Their SuperOptOut feature is free service designed to cut down on junk mail and intrusive telemarketing by helping consumers to remove their names from mailing and telemarketing lists.

Yet another vendor of infomediary services is PrivacyBank, which aims to serve those who are "tired of filling out forms, ... want a central point to manage [their] data, or ... are concerned with how [their] private data is used, shared and collected by Web sites ..." Features touted by PrivacyBank include:

Form AutoFill technology to expedite your surfing experience
Central storage and management of personal information
User defined privacy preferences
Network of trusted Web businesses

Like other vendors of digital personas, Novell will soon be making it DigitalMe software available for downloading and usage free of charge. (See Perez,1999, and Steinberg, 1999) In a keynote address at Compaq Computer Corp.'s Innovate Forum '99, Novell's Chairman Eric Schmidt asserted that⁽¹⁶⁾:

Directory technology, which consolidates a user's information centrally on a network, is critical to the success and development of electronic commerce.
Directories are the key to making the jump from the Internet's first phase, characterized by simple connections, to the second phase, which is anchored by a deeper understanding of who the users are and marked by trust and relationships.
Directory technology is the key to moving to a real e-commerce environment with intelligent networks.
Directories will also let users determine how they will be contacted and have control over how their information is used on the Net.

Of course, it is understandable that the primary motivation for each of these digital persona enterprises is to make money for the entrepreneurs. The freebies are intended to serve as a foot-in-the-door to market profitable "fee-bie" services. That is as it should be in a free-enterprise, market-based economy. However, notwithstanding their promotional hype, the true focus of each of these initiatives is not on individuals or customers, per se. That is, each endeavors to carve out a niche on the Net, the bigger the better, for its "host". The "customers" are merely a "resource" to be "acquired" so as to create a value chain leading to profits for the vendors.

In service to that purpose, it is necessary for the vendors to differentiate themselves from each other and maximize the switching costs so as to "lock in" their customers. Therein lies the rub. As Hagel and Singer have noted, there is an inherent misalignment between the interests of the purveyors and their prospective customers. And it plays itself out in proprietary product offerings, divergent database schemas, and general dis-interoperability among the many systems with which individuals are expected to contend.

It has often been noted that one of the beauties of the Web is its lack of rules, structure, and bureaucracy. Moreover, it has been said that the wonderful thing about standards is that there are so many of them from which to choose, and only half in jest, the word "standard" has been defined as "something from which to digress." However, in truth, the real beauty of the Web is that it has been a driving force for implementation and use of standards, which are essential for any community to operate as such. Without TCP/IP, HTTP, and HTML, the Web just ain't happenin'. The quintessential beauty of the Web is that its standards free people from having to deal with lower-level issues of communication and representation, thereby empowering individuals to bring the force of their own creativity to bear on higher-level knowledge (what the Webheads call "content") within their own spheres of expertise.

In politics, the principle of one-person/one-vote is well established. Why can and should it not also be so with respect to digital personas? What valid interest of the individual is served by forcing the use of multiple digital representations of him or herself that are proprietary to their hosts? Some will raise the specter of misuse of a universal personal ID, but how is personal security for individuals enhanced by the maintenance of sensitive personal information in multiple locations out of range of their control and even their knowledge? From the perspective of decency and universal human rights, the problem is not that a unique element of data can be used to identify any person. The problem is that there are too many of "unique" identifiers that are not "personal" at all. That is, too many different "hosts" are being allowed to generate and maintain too many different identifiers for people - completely out of the control and often even without the knowledge of the person involved. Indeed, even when a unique identifier is already available in a repository under the individual's control, others are permitted routinely to commandeer copies of those elements and treat them as their own. Wells Branscomb (1994) notes, for example: "It seems to have gone unnoticed that the telephone number is becoming a more universal identifier, at least for commercial purposes, than the social security number."⁽¹⁷⁾ (p. 48)

From the perspective of customers as individuals, how many different standards are needed to protect the privacy of personal data? How is it that various commercial "transaction sets" are important enough to warrant their own standards (X.12 & EDIFACT) but human beings are not?⁽¹⁸⁾ If personal data were maintained in a standards-compliant directory through which each individual could efficiently restrict and grant access to their own data ... on their own terms ... to anyone else ... worldwide, what basis could there be for continuing to allow other individuals and commercial enterprises to capture and treat it as their own, to be used for purposes not authorized by the individual in question?

Inefficiency of access and uncoordinated distribution of management control among myriad "hosts" are no substitutes for effective control of personal data by the person him or herself, at least not in terms of privacy. If we're truly interested in paying more than lip service to customer focus, what could be more important than establishing a standard means for basic representation of the individual person to any and all applications worldwide? At the very least, we ought to tell it like it is. If we're not really serious about focusing on the customer, then let's stop lying about it. Customer focus means focusing first and directly on the customer, and nothing else. Anything else is in fact something else. Period!

Although many Web-based services may appear anonymous, Macavinta (1999) notes that data repositories can come to back haunt those who use certain portal services. Catlett (in Macavinta) says, "There is an enormous danger here because in the name of personalization, the portals are collecting huge profiles of users which are available under subpoena to any lawyer or investigator." In a series of lawsuits claiming that users slandered their firms, companies have sought to uncover the identity of people who posted messages on Yahoo. Those cases highlight the fact that anonymity and the Net no longer go hand in hand. Portals such as Yahoo are in the same position as ISPs, required to secure the data they escrow and then comply with legal authorities when someone is accused of wrongdoing over their services.

Under the circumstances, Web portal services have little choice but to authenticate users. While some argue that portals should carefully balance their business interests with visitors' privacy protections, there is a basic contradiction in terms with the concept of making "private" thoughts publicly available to anyone in the world via the Net. It's a little bit like crying "fire" in a crowded theater but doing so remotely by wireless microphone linked into the theater's sound system, with one's voice disguised. Fun for the perpetrator perhaps, but quite another matter for anyone else. It's a bit like having a giant, remotely controlled fist with which to smack anyone in the nose without suffering the consequences of having that fist associated with one's arm, much less one's own nose. Who are we kidding here? The thought turns completely on its head the exhortation to "think globally; act locally." It virtually begs for pushing to escalate into shoving.

In fact, it already has. One recent example involves the "anonymous" posting of derogatory and possibly defamatory remarks about a used car dealership on eBay, an online auction market. Segal (1999) reports that eBay does not conduct background checks on any of its participants or edit any of the feedback they provide on its site. Rather, it invites buyers and sellers to publicly review each other after every transaction, hoping the market will police itself by shunning unscrupulous participants. However, as Segal notes, such a hands-off approach offers the potential for competitors to denigrate each other by posing as customers.

The notion of having portals act as institutional agents for those who may wish to "reach out and touch someone" with an anonymous whack is of highly dubious value. To the degree that it has any value at all, those who choose to use the medium in such a fashion should be required to pay the cost of the liability insurance required to indemnify those who are injustly harmed. Moreover, the system itself should provide means that are as quick and easy for claimants to use to obtain just recompense as for those who might use it anonymously to take actions that generate such claims.⁽¹⁹⁾ Such even-handedness is a matter of simple equity but should also be reflected in law.

The answer is not to have "service providers" act as covers for those who would choose to commit wrongdoing, or even to act as seconds for those who would choose to do good. A far better course is a technical standard for individuals to represent themselves not only to other people but also to all automated applications, worldwide. By definition, such a standard must focus on providing directory services expressly designed to meet the needs of "the customer" - which is to say the people who will be using the system.

In a March 8, 1999, press release announcing open-beta testing of Novell Directory Services version 8, Novell calls it the "next-generation scalable Internet directory" and proclaims that it:

Eliminates the need for special-purpose Internet directories by achieving unprecedented levels of scalable performance.

Can store and manage millions more users, applications, network devices and data than competing directories.

Integrates with more Internet standards and applications than any of its competitors.

Natively supports the directory standard Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) version 3, allowing interoperability with other LDAP-based directories and applications.

Will give organizations the foundation to bring all their customers and supply-chain partners online and ramp up their e-commerce implementations. (emphasis added)

Again, this is all well and good, a highly encouraging sign of significant progress. However, the latter point highlights that the focus remains on enhancing the interests of the organization rather than the individual. And while many organizations are doing good and important business that serves the interests of consumers quite well, the fact remains that all of the talk of "customer focus" is simply that - so much talk. Both as consumers and as citizens, individuals are still effectively treated as pawns to be "acquired" by and forced to contend with myriad "hosts" whose interest in them is symbiotic at best and parasitic at worst.⁽²⁰⁾

Database designers and administrators know very well that the way to reconcile many-to-many relationships is to construct intersecting entities that embody the elements necessary to identify the relationship - including those characterized by true partnership and/or the inverted pyramid, master/slave relationship implicit in a truly customer-focus orientation. Aside from the issue of whether the "customer is always right" or not, as Cook (1996) points out, responsible database design principles dictate that "the basic information about the person ... is only stored once ..." (p. 91) And "... the information about the roles the person plays [is] stored in the role entities." Further elucidating the point, she notes (p. 115):

people

organization

people

create

people

It turns out that we will need to identify a more generic enterprise business function that creates these cross-functional entities, although the roles that these entities can play can be isolated to a single business function. For example, we have identified that marketing creates the role of prospect, and it is likely that the procurement function creates the role of vendor. However, both functions would need the ability to create a new person or organization if it did not already exist. Therefore, classification theory tells us to pull it out as a separate function. (emphases added)

We can consider the global data classes that do not belong to a specific business function to be cross-functional reference data or master data for the enterprise. In the architecture, the master data and processes that create master data form their own information systems. (emphases added)

Consider the actual meaning of the highlighted words from the perspective of the "prospect" ... the individual person, indeed the very customer to whom so much lip service had been paid. Effectively, individuals are to be treated as man-children to be procreated as if sprung from the mind of Zeus and thereafter manipulated in a database that is entirely proprietary to its master. Neither the database nor the business philosophy that undergirds it is truly customer-focused. Nor are they "global" in the most literal sense of the word. Cook makes two other points that are certainly important and true, albeit whose implications are routinely misinterpreted, ignored, or misapplied:

With the shift from mass marketing to direct marketing, it will be increasingly important to understand the needs of the individuals ... (p. 91)
... standards increase ... flexibility by decoupling components from one another. (pp. 127 & 128)

Sadly, to this point in the history of our world, database designers and administrators have lacked the understanding, will, and/or direction from system owners and organizational decision-makers to put words into action as far as customer-focus is concerned. Clearly and simply stated, a true customer-focus requires an international open-systems directory standard such as X.500. Highlighting the potential of X.500 to provide services for integrated applications, Boeyen (undated) observes:

X.500 offers a standardized means of providing integrated directory services to a variety of different users and applications. The basic unit of information in an X.500 directory is an entry. Entries are classified by the different types of object they represent. For example the entry for an employee who has access to e-mail, might be classified as an organizational person entry as well as an e-mail user entry. This type of classification determines the information elements or attributes which are to be held in the entries.

Additional classifications and associated attributes may be added to the entry as required. For instance, should an organization assign public key certificates to its employees to be used for encryption, the entries for the employees would also be classified as "strong authentication users", and the appropriate public key certificate attribute would be added to the entries.

The X.500 administrative models enable management of various attributes to be distributed to the appropriate authorities.

Customer-focus, security, and privacy considerations are implicit in the design of the truly "global" X.500 directory and have been explicitly addressed by its proponents. On January 23, 1992, the North American Directory Forum (NADF) introduced a "User Bill of Rights" to address security and privacy issues regarding entries and listings concerning its proposed cooperative public directory service. It stated:

As a user, you have:

The right not to be listed.
The right to have you or your agent informed when your entry is created.
The right to examine your entry.
The right to correct inaccurate information in your entry.
The right to remove specific information from your entry.
The right to be assured that your listing in the Public Directory will comply with US or Canadian law regulating privacy or access information.
The right to expect timely fulfillment of these rights.

NADF is a collection of service providers that aim to offer a cooperative directory service in North America, by interconnecting electronic directories using a set of internationally developed standards. The "Directory" is the collection of electronic directories administered by both service providers and private operators. An entry containing information about a user in the Directory can be accessed unless restricted by security and privacy controls. A portion of the Directory - The Public Directory - contains information for public dissemination. Other portions may contain information not intended for public access. A user or user's agent may elect to list information in the Public Directory, a private directory, or some combination. (in Joslin, 1992)

That sounds good. However, it is easier said than done, not only technically but also as far as market acceptance is concerned. (See also EMA, 1997.) Johnson (undated) offers the following explanation of the factors that have limited the acceptance and deployment of X.500⁽²¹⁾:

Products that might use a directory service are not yet X.500-aware. Implementing an X.500 Directory User Agent (DUA), the Directory Access Protocol (DAP) and ASN.1 encoding is quite a task, and is probably outside the capabilities of many vendors of desktop utilities and e-mail products.

As of yet, there is no real global X.500 Directory Information Tree. Companies which have implemented X.500 can only connect to each other on a peer-to-peer basis. Service providers are not yet offering public X.500 directory services. It can be argued that there can be little current requirement for a global directory if no products yet exist that can use it.

However, three recent technological advances are likely to bootstrap the requirements for a global directory:

X.500-enabled World Wide Web servers allow users to traverse the X.500 directory using any Web client - many of which are free.

The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) was originally created to simplify access to X.500 directories. It is evolving to become a general-purpose directory access protocol that de-couples the user agent from the technical complexities of the actual directory service being used. LDAP could be used to access a MAPI Address Book or Banyan StreetTalk directory as easily as X.500. Developers can directory-enable their applications by using LDAP. The application is unaware of the directory protocol being used, allowing a single user agent to be successfully used with several different directory services.

Johnson notes that two other initiatives are already beginning to demonstrate the need for a public directory:

Public Key Cryptography is becoming recognized as the best way to provide security services such as digital signatures, content integrity, and encryption. In order to use this technology, a global directory is needed to provide easy access to the public keys.

Johnson argues that the need for a global, confederated directory is clearly increasing and that many major international corporations, service providers, and governments believe that X.500 will provide that global directory service. In any event, from the perspective of the individual and particularly the efficient and effective protection of privacy, the issue is not whether such an open-systems directory is needed but what standard will be applied to engender it. If not X.500, why not? What other international standard will serve the requirement better? Kille (undated) summarizes the expected evolution of X.500 and LDAP as follows:

Some intranet directories will be provided using X.500, and others using proprietary mechanisms. X.500 will only be a small factor in determining the most successful products.

To build a global (Internet) directory, industry consensus must be reached on two key problems:

How to interconnect intranet directories. X.500 is a possible solution for this.

LDAP will have a key role to play as the preferred directory access mechanism, although it will not become the Internet directory. X.500 will have a role, and possibly a very significant role in the provision of directory services.

Again, if X.500 should not become the directory not only for the Internet but also all other networked applications, the question is why not? What other standard will serve the interests of individual consumers (i.e., "the customer") better? And what are the attributes of that standard that make it superior for any purpose other than serving the proprietary interests of its "host"?

Concerning the role of X.500 in supporting Public Key Infrastructures (PKI), Boyen (undated) draws the following summary conclusions:

X.500 directory systems are extremely well suited to the role of the information repository for large scale and interoperable Public Key Infrastructures. The value of the service will be further increased if the same X.500 directory service is used to support the corresponding applications such as electronic commerce, messaging, etc. In addition, the ease of use will be greatly enhanced as the application systems evolve to support standard Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to access security functions, and as the applications and security functions share a common interface to a single directory service.

While the authentication framework defined by X.509 is designed to operate in the X.500 directory server environment, Kent (1993) notes that X.500 directory servers are not expected to be ubiquitous in the Internet in the near future. Thus, some conventions have been adopted to facilitate operation of the key management infrastructure in the near term. Once again, it is clear that efficiency and effectiveness in service of the interests of the individual are being systematically subverted by corporate entities who stand to profit from the imposition of such proprietary "conventions" in lieu of universal use of an international standard focusing on the customer.

Although it is possible for "service providers" to beg, borrow, or steal the digital personas of individuals and thus gain some measure of control over them in their networked relations with others, biometric personas may be another matter. At least, proprietors can be expected to pay a higher price to acquire body parts and functions from individuals than they've been paying for the myriad digital representations of people. Under current law, it is illegal for anyone to acquire an entire, living human body for the purposes of enslavement. Moreover, the number of fingerprints, irises, voices, etc. that may legitimately be associated with any individual is limited.

In a survey of international electronic and digital signature initiatives, the Internet Law and Policy Forum (ILPF), noted the following:

It seems likely, however, that even biometric techniques will require some sort of trust infrastructure - as with cryptographic keys, some trusted third party must confirm the relationship between a particular biometric feature and a particular person or attribute of a person. Thus, it may very well turn out to be the case that the legal issues raised by the operation of a trust infrastructure are fairly generic to all authentication technologies. (footnote 5)

If legislation permits CAs to limit their liability ... it would seem that the market would quickly determine the appropriate range of certificate values and their corresponding costs to users. If there is demand for high value certificates with correspondingly high liability limitations, a CA would presumably charge the holder of the certificate an amount that includes an appropriate risk premium and thereby internalize its costs. Similarly, if there is demand for low value or even "no value" certificates (which many believe will be the most widespread use of digital signatures) the CA would limit its liability to an appropriately small amount (and perhaps forego liability altogether), and the cost to the user would be reduced. The only real hazard of this market driven approach is that third parties will have to be diligent in confirming the validity of a certificate, and the acceptability of any liability limitation it contains, in light of the nature of the transaction. As the value of a transaction increases, however, it seems presumptively more reasonable to impose those duties on third parties. Moreover, if it turns out that the risks for third parties remain too great, they will not accept high value certificates and no market for these certificates will emerge. (footnote 19)

In a treatise for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration on self-regulation and privacy, Woodward (1998) stressed:

Biometrics should not be construed as privacy's foe. Quite to the contrary, biometrics is privacy's friend. Biometrics is privacy's friend because biometrics: safeguards information integrity and thwarts identity theft; limits access to sensitive information; and serves as a privacy enhancing technology.

A pro-privacy position should not be construed as an anti-biometric stance: You can be a friend of privacy and a friend of biometrics. Moreover, limited government regulation of private sector use of this technology is not opposing biometrics but rather promoting biometrics. Appropriate policymaking can greatly increase public acceptance of this technology.

The law and policy concerns of biometrics cannot be left solely to politicians, lawyers and advocates. Technologists, engineers and scientists must vigorously add their voices to this discussion because we need the benefit of their unique scientific and technical understanding.

While the latter point is surely true, so too is the fact that considerations privacy and customer-focus are too important to be left to proprietary database administrators. Woodward notes that the greater threat to privacy with respect to biometric applications will likely not arise from the use of advanced technology to monitor but rather from sloppiness in database management.⁽²²⁾ And that threat is multiplied by the number of different databases in which myriad proprietors claim ownership of any, much less every individual's personal data.⁽²³⁾ In a rare and refreshing expression of truth, Abram (undated) gives voice to the heart of the matter:

I suspect that everyone who reads this will, on many occasions, have found themselves embroiled in discussions about 'who owns the customer'... companies and intermediaries will typically and unsurprisingly, take opposing points of view. The debate will rage, tempers will flare and much heat will be generated. Little light will be shed and nothing will change. Virtually all these discussions are a waste of time and effort. They are based on an entirely false assumption. The reality is that neither ... "owns" the customer. The best that can be hoped for is to be able to borrow a small proportion of the customer's time. The idea that any of us can "own" the customer is a nonsense. It is based on a faulty thought process which, as well as displaying an astonishing degree of arrogance, prevents businesses ... from operating efficiently and effectively. The only thing that is more nonsensical is the thought that individuals should willingly allow themselves to be "owned" - which in terms of information technology is to say, to allow anyone but themselves control their own personal data. What are we? Chattel? Sheep? Ears to be cloned on the backs of mice, to be grafted to our heads so as to provide a direct link to any and all "proprietors" who would claim an inalienable right under the First Amendment to mindshare in our brains? The very thought is preposterous. However, it is also widely practiced.

One of the most aggravating instances of the misuse of personal data involves unsolicited phone calls. Whereas E-mail and regular junk mail are asynchronous means of communications, telephone conversations are synchronous - at least on the part of the recipient. One way or another, the recipient is forced to attend to them on a schedule largely dictated by the "host" (i.e., the originator). Quite literally, the telephone system provides a direct link into the heads of anyone who is not deaf and is within earshot of customer "premise" equipment. (pun intended)⁽²⁴⁾ While Congress has actually enacted a law, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), purported to protect consumers from junk calls, Private Citizen (undated) points out that it is so riddled with loopholes that "telemarketers can drive a boiler-room through it."⁽²⁵⁾

Indeed, President Clinton has appealed to Congress to pass new legislation to stop telemarketers from preying on the elderly, declaring that fraudulent business deals offered by telephone pose "the greatest threat that many older Americans face." He noted that Americans lose an estimated $40 billion per year to telephone schemes and that more than half of the victims are older than 50. The proposed legislation would give the Justice Department the authority to terminate telephone service in light of evidence indicating that it has been or will be used for illegal telemarketing. (McAllister) However, so long as telemarketers can freely access and use personal data as if they "own" it, it is difficult to imagine that the government will be able close down illegal operations nearly as rapidly as they can proliferate. Moreover, why on the basis of age discrimination should only half of the problem be addressed?

Leibovich (1999) highlights an aspect of telemarketing that tilts the balance even more ridiculously in favor of its "hosts" - the use of automatic dialers and messages pre-recorded by celebrities. Thus, the purveyors of such unsolicited calls are freed from having to spend any of their own personal time even as they claim the time and attention of their targets, potential customers or not. The TPCA supposedly restricts the use of the telephone to complete unsolicited sales and the Federal Communications Commission believes that it may apply in this instance. However, at best, it is inefficient to place the burden on consumers and the government to stop practices that should automatically be precluded by the technology itself.

O'Harrow (1999, April 23) reports on yet another facet of the problem - the growing "grey market" for personal information gleaned from "pretext calling," whereby information brokers using lies and deception pose as individuals on the phone so as to persuade banks and other institutions to release such information to them. The Federal Trade Commission has charged one broker with using illegal, unfair and deceptive practices. The Comptroller of the Currency, which oversees the operation of national banks, has cautioned them to use better passwords to protect against unauthorized releases of financial information. However, again, it is unlikely that government enforcement actions will ever be equal to the task of stopping such practices when they are so readily facilitated by the technology and accepted business practices.

Moreover, the information brokers have a valid point: Court-sanctioned means of gathering personal data are time-consuming and costly, even when justified to proceed against deadbeat dads and those who fail to pay their bills. On the other hand, two wrongs do not make a right, regardless of who commits the first instance of wrongdoing. A far better solution would be to give individuals control over their own personal data in an internationally standards-compliant directory, supported by statutorily mandated record-keeping requirements, whereby individuals can manage and audit usage of their own data while at the same time others who have valid rights to it can be granted appropriate access as well.⁽²⁶⁾

Through the application of an international standard like X.500, people should be empowered to indicate not only their own personal interests but also the parameters within which they choose to receive information from others related to those interests. Aside from the issue of who owns the rights to use personal data, customers should have the right to control what comes at them through their telcos and ISPs, since they pay the tariff for those services. The issue is somewhat more complex as far as postal and broadcast services are concerned, but it might be in the interest of both the U.S. Postal Service as well as the broadcast media service providers to consider the business opportunity for narrowcasting ... before it runs them over.

Privacy is a large and growing issue and obviously so too is electronic commerce. Information technology and proprietary directories are generally viewed as threats to privacy. However, the value proposition that begs realization is to capitalize on the distributed, open-systems nature of X.500 to turn that assumption on its head. Theoretically, each person might have their own, personal X.500 directory built into their own phones and PCs, but telcos, banks, ISPs, and other organizations should consider offering such services based upon an open-systems standard that guarantees interoperability. Thus, far the focus seems to have been on the vendors rather than the consumers, but over the longer term, those who do the best job of meeting the actual needs and desires of the customer will prevail in an unfettered market-based economy.

In a very real sense, personal privacy is the flip side of the notion of "advertising" not only one's wares but also one's life history, expertise, and experiences. Theoretically, people could provide notice of their expertise in an X.500 compliant directory, thereby facilitating query, discovery, connection, establishment, synthesis, and continuous symbiotic expansion of knowledge and knowledge-enhancing relationships worldwide. The potential for the X.500 to connect people should be contemplated within the continuum for the management and discovery of knowledge in general. As Norman (1988) pointed out, knowledge may exist in one of two places - in the world or in people's heads.⁽²⁷⁾ The X.500 White Pages can serve the role of the "intersecting entity" to connect the knowledge and expertise embodied in people and as yet "uncaptured" in the world. In that sense, it might be called ISO-X-ISO, or ISO-squared (ISO²) - meaning the "In Search Of" standard endorsed for worldwide application by the International Standards Organization.

For governmental services, the X.500 Blue Pages constitute an expertise directory, with a couple levels of indirection between the person submitting the query and the actual information they want. (See Ambur, 1997, December.) The numbers listed in the directory are aliases for the people who answer the phones, and the people who answer the phones are intermediaries - oftentimes needlessly - for the information and/or action desired by the callers. Personal anonymity is a matter of administrative efficiency rather than privacy in this instance, but the effect is the same.⁽²⁸⁾ Moreover, in most instances the underlying requirement and the desired outcome for the Blue Pages are the same as for DASL, Z39.50, and the DMA - to provide ready access to knowledge, not to engage in conversation, browsing, or "surfing". (For information on DASL, Z39.50, and the Document Management Alliance, see Ambur, 1999, April.)

Consumers pay for their telephone and Internet access services. If they don't like what they see on TV or hear on the radio, they can turn it off or switch channels. Bill Gates et al. are working on Internet "channels" and Vice President Gore et al. feel strongly that parents should be able to control what their children see and hear on TV and the Internet. Theoretically, the X.500 directory could be exploited to give consumers a single point of control over what comes at them via "push" technologies, especially via their telephone and E-mail services.⁽²⁹⁾ Ultimately, the service might be used to target cable TV and Web page advertisements as well.

As always, the market or absence thereof will determine whether such a service is economically viable. Direct marketers and the vendors of products and services can be expected to fight anything that may shift power to consumers and thereby diminish "proprietary" control and, thus, profitability ... that is, the share of profitability that is based upon controlling consumer behavior rather than serving the unfettered needs and desires of people. Early advocates of the Internet were naive to think that it could be maintained as a commercial-free zone. In the near-term, the services that can be maintained on the Internet without relying upon advertising revenue remain to be seen. However, even the most ardent defenders of the First Amendment would have a difficult time arguing that individuals have no right to control what hits their eyes and ears - especially when they themselves are paying for the channels over which the blows are delivered. Why should one body part - the nose - be given preferential treatment over other sensory organs?

Telcos and ISPs might initially offer customer-focused, consumer-control directory capabilities as a "premium" service. Once the technical capabilities have been established and proven, it will be interesting to see whether a paradigm shift might occur with respect to who "owns" the time and attention of consumers, who should be expected to pay for it, and how. For example, shouldn't those who can be reached by "narrowcasting" pay less for products and services than those who can only be reached via less efficient, more costly broadcasting? And those who are loyal to a brand, for example, might expect to be rewarded more directly for it, especially if they are willing to enter into a contractual or other more or less formal expression of their loyalty.

It would be especially interesting to see what might happen if the X.500 directory, including consumer preference data and access control parameters, were populated in cascading chain-letter fashion using electronic forms (E-forms) distributed via Internet-based E-mail and workflow automation, as well as by voice and key response on the telephone and perhaps even by regular mail.⁽³⁰⁾ That is, anyone who currently enjoys a personal or professional relationship with anyone else might be empowered to supply a limited amount of metadata (as little as an E-mail or postal address or a phone number) about that person and thereby "nominate" him or her for inclusion in the directory. The "sponsor" would also specify his/her relationship to the nominee.

The nominee would in turn be automatically contacted, by the means specified by his/her sponsor. The nominee would be notified who sponsored the nomination as well as the relationship specified, and would be empowered to confirm or reject the relationship as well as to accept or reject the nomination. In the event the nominee chooses to accept, s/he would be given the opportunity to include as little or much information as s/he chooses and, equally importantly, to specify usage parameters for each element of data supplied. Finally, each nominee who agrees to participate in the directory would be given the opportunity to nominate other friends, family members, and business associates.

Logically, the first participants must be those who propose to supply and support the necessary technical infrastructure. The parameters defining their qualifications, products, and services should be among the initial elements incorporated into the directory, and their appearance in the directory would constitute their offer to potential consumers. To the degree they already have relationships with existing customers, they could then use the system - with tact and care - to "push" their offers to those customers by "nominating" them for an additional business relationship(s) within the directory. No doubt, it will be smart for vendors to offer to host basic X.500 directory services for their existing customers for very low and preferably no additional charge whatsoever. However, once an individual has accepted an nomination and taken control of his or her own persona in the directory, the service provider should be contractually and legally bound to enforce the person's preferences, as specified in the directory.⁽³¹⁾

An editorial in NetworkMagazine (1998, September) lamented the growing intrusion of ads embedded in electronic products. In an E-mail message commending the editorial, the author expressed the following line of reasoning:

Logically speaking, the solution is to return to consumers control over what they see and hear. Since people don't own the air waves, other people's private property, or the public sight lines, they may not have the right to control what appears on billboard, radio, or television. However, they do pay for local telephone service and Internet access, and they should have the right to determine what comes at them via those media. As a matter of principle, individuals should "own" the rights to their own preferences, and others should be expected to compensate them appropriately for the privilege of capitalizing on them... I'd encourage your publication to pursue the concept of using an international directory standard like X.500 to empower individuals to classify the kinds of information they are willing to receive. Initially perhaps, the telcos and ISPs might compete to offer such directory "gateway" services to consumers at reasonable cost. However, ultimately, it is the vendors who should bear the "access charges" to each individual's preference file(s). In response, Zeichick (1998) offered the following comments:

Thanks for your note! I think you may have a good idea here - but that assumes, of course, that everyone's going to play by the rules. Even if there's a global meta-directory that let's users set up their privileges, who's to say that it will be used? Also, look at the furor of technology that would allow TV watchers to turn off commercials (a situation that's rather analogous to embedded ads in software). Consumer advocates and TV manufacturers like it - but advertisers and TV networks don't. If advertising pays for the product (which is true in TV, and on the Internet, but not yet true for most software), why would an advertiser pay if the user can turn the ad off? And if the advertiser chooses not to pay, who will pay to create and distribute the product? Much food for thought here. Yes, indeed, these are good questions, containing much food for thought. But equally good questions are: Why would any person in their right mind turn over control of their own lives, as reflected in their own personal data, to someone with whom they have no personal relationship? Indeed, to someone whose clear mission is to "own the customer" so as to extract as much revenue as possible out of him or her while delivering as little value as possible in return? Why would any consumer willingly pay first to be propagandized into purchasing a product or service only then to turn around and pay the vendor an additional profit margin on the cost of the propaganda? Given the potential not to be forced to pay such needless premiums, why would any consumer do business with any vendor who refuses to "play by the rules"?

Granted, these are radical notions and, to most people, the devil you know is often preferable to the devil you don't. However, if the answers continue to be exclusively slanted in favor of vendors rather than consumers, at least truth-in-advertising should be recognized for what it is - a myth best supplanted by the admonition "buyer beware!" Indeed, when wooed by vendors plying platitudes of customer-focus and service, consumers should respond with a large guffaw. Yet a far better alternative in the interest of all concerned - vendors and customers alike - is to establish a regime in which each individual is indeed and truly the focus, in which each person controls his or her own personal data, and in which both commerce and trust can thrive on the strength of a more perfect union of interests among equal partners to equal-value exchanges.⁽³²⁾

As the directory grows, legislation should be enacted to require businesses to get the individual's permission to use any of his or her data. Of course, businesses would be free to maintain data on their transactions with any person. However, they might be required to maintain it in a "blind" or even a "double-blind" fashion, so that they could not tie it to any individual without the individual's permission or, in the event of a valid need that conflicts with the interest or ability of the individual to grant permission, with the approval of a duly authorized third party. Use of a person's telephone number for telemarketing or an E-mail or postal address for junk mail without the person's approval, for example, could be taken as prima facie evidence of wrongdoing, subject to reasonable penalties automatically enforced in each instance and which would become prohibitively expensive to any enterprise en masse.⁽³³⁾

In light of the EU privacy directive and its potential application worldwide, there ought to be tremendous market potential for an open-systems standard enabling people worldwide not only to control access to their own personal data, but also to reveal as much about themselves and their interests as they desire, to whomever else they desire, based upon the attributes their potential contacts choose to reveal about themselves (e.g., their technical expertise to solve a problem). In effect, the directory would become the international personal and professional classifieds. With the connection to the X.509 standard and to Certificate Authorities, it could become the basis for all electronic transactions worldwide.

The combination of Novell's DigitalMe and NDS has been called a "portal buster" and that is exactly what the X.500 directory can and should become. (See Foley, Satran, Surkan, Berinato, and Foley and Sperling.) For what is a "portal" but a Web site that endeavors to hold people hostage long enough to expose them to force-fed propaganda as a precondition to discovering whether the vendor actually offers anything the individual really wants or needs. Portals are based upon the outmoded paradigm of hierarchical management, in which the "clients" are placed in a subservient relationship to the "servers". Indeed, notwithstanding any platitudes about customer-focus and service, by definition, the portal places itself at the pinnacle of the hierarchy.

Potentially, the participants in a standards-based, open-systems worldwide directory could capture and more productively redirect much of the revenue currently going into the advertising and marketing sector of the economy. They could do so by eliminating the needless cost and inefficiency of the current paradigm by bringing people directly together based upon their mutual interests, as reflected in the parameters (person metadata) "embodied" in the directory.

Reportedly, NDS Version 8 will handle up to 1 billion users and devices. Rumor also has it that Novell plans to port NDS and DigitalMe to Linux, and the prospect of a "free" open-systems operating system to support the directory is highly appealing. If Novell can get third-party vendors (e.g., the telcos, banks, etc.) to use DigitalMe to market X.509 certificates to consumers, it may not matter that NDS is not exactly an open-systems X.500-compliant directory.⁽³⁴⁾ However, as appealing as Novell's strategy may be, people should be no more enamored of the thought that any vendor might "own" their personal data - by virtue of holding it in Novell's proprietary repository - than of continuing to be forced to pay alms to Bill Gates for membership rights to enter Cyberspace.

When push comes to shove:

Privacy is personal.
The customer is the customer.
The customer is a person.
Customer-focus focuses on the customer.
Customer-focus focuses on the person.

In terms of information technology, privacy and customer-focus require the adoption and use of an international standard for the representation of the person ... as a unique individual who owns his or her own digital persona. Anything else is something else. Nothing else is truly "customer-focused" nor, by definition, can it meet the requisites for personal privacy in the global marketplace. Indeed, the privacy scholar Alan Westin defines "privacy" as the ability for people to determine "when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others." (Wells Branscomb, pp. 44 & 45)

In the closing chapter of her book, "The Power of Logical Thinking," Marilyn Vos Savant notes: "One of the biggest weaknesses of majority rule is that the majority may be wrong." (p. 166) That may be acceptable as far as politics are concerned since, as oft observed, "democracy is the worst form of government ... except for all the others." However, it is not acceptable to impose the mistakes of the majority upon the individual with respect to privacy, personal choice, and customer-focus. It is widely recognized that, whenever possible, effective self-regulation is clearly preferred over externally imposed control. And so it is that - for the purposes not only of privacy but also optimization of profitable relationships in the cyber marketplace - an open-systems directory standard like X.500 is the quintessential key. Grasping that key firmly in hand and wielding it with enlightened self-interest, individuals working together can build nothing less than a monument to the human spirit - a dynamic worldwide web of affinity, integrity, security, productivity, knowledge, and value-based relationships.

Finally, Ms. Vos Savant references Herbert Simon's concept of "satisficing" - in which people settle for a satisfactory level of winning rather than search for an optimal solution. Consistent with human nature, it is perfectly understandable for those who know no better to continue, like sheep, lending their personas to whatever purposes others may choose for them.

The question is ... why would anyone who knows better do so?

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X.500. Additional on-line references:

Understanding X.500 - The Directory

http://www.salford.ac.uk/its024/Version.Web/Contents.htm

Online Directory Services: X.500 User Overview, University of Michigan Information Technology Division, Reference R1124, September 1993. Available at: http://ftp.sunet.se/pub/nir/x500/overview.txt

Trinity College Dublin - Computer Science Department, Networks & Telecommunications Research Group. Home page: http://ntrg.cs.tcd.ie/ The X.500 Directory Service, Introduction. Available at: http://ntrg.cs.tcd.ie/4ba2/x500/

Graphical depiction of X.500 http://ganges.cs.tcd.ie/4ba2/x500/martin/compfig.gif

Zeichick, A. (1998, September 12) Personal exchange of E-mail concerning an editorial entitled "The Collapse of Civilization," which appeared in the September 1998 edition of NetworkMagazine.

End Notes

1. Singletary (1999) reports the introduction of the Financial Privacy Act of 1999, which would make it harder for institutions to disclose or sell financial information about their customers without their consent. Her question is, "Who gave companies that right in the first place?" The answer supplied by Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center is, "Companies just took it. They just took the right to sell our personal information." Singletary believes that she has "an inherent right to own and control the bits and pieces of information that define who I am..." Norman Magnuson of the Association of Credit Bureaus asks whether she would rather have the government decide that she shouldn't get all those offers for credit, for example, or whether she'd rather make those decisions at her trash can. Her response: She'd rather have her stuff kept private and require companies that want to use it to ask her permission. However, she notes that there is nothing in Federal law to prevent a bank, broker, or insurance firm from taking personal information obtained from customers through their transactions and selling or transferring it to a third party.

The proposed legislation would rectify that problem by requiring institutions to obtain a consumer's informed consent. Singletary objects to the fact the bill would require consumers to opt out, rather than requiring companies to persuade them to opt into a data sharing agreement. Industry officials argue that obtaining affirmative consent from consumers would be excessively costly and wreak havoc with the economy. Singletary doesn't buy it. She notes, "With the technology we have today, it's much easier than ever to click a key on a computer, send a postcard or make a call to say, 'Yes, please put me on all those mailing lists so I can get all those pesky telemarketing telephone calls.'"

2. When Wells Branscomb asked the Postal Service to stop her post office box with unsolicited mail addressed to "occupant," she was told they could not legally comply with her request. (p. 11)

3. The President also noted:

The Federal Government requires appropriate information about its citizens to carry out its diverse missions mandated by the Constitution and laws of the United States. Long mindful of the potential for misuse of Federal records on individuals, the United States has adopted a comprehensive approach to limiting the Government's collection, use, and disclosure of personal information. Protections afforded such information include the Privacy Act of 1974, the Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act of 1988, the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, and the Principles for Providing and Using Personal Information ("Privacy Principles"), published by the Information Infrastructure Task Force on June 6, 1995, and available from the Department of Commerce. 4. Steyaert (undated) set forth privacy principles for Federal Web sites.

5. Following up on a pledge by Vice President Gore, the President appointed Peter Swire to be the administration's chief counselor on privacy. O'Harrow (1999, March 4) reports that Swire was selected due to his knowledge of the European directive. Privacy advocates praised the appointment but have questioned whether Swire will have enough political clout or financial support to be more than a symbol.

6. Walker (1999) expresses hope that Hagel and Singer are right and that the Internet can help "turn marketing on its head, giving consumers more control over the seemingly random 1 million advertising messages to which they are exposed annually."

7. Hagel and Singer (p. 34) acknowledge that customers will still receive unsolicited messages via the postal service but suggest that they should decline over time. As a matter of interpretation of current U.S. law, direct mailers are presumed to have the right to fill post boxes with unsolicited mail. However, it would be short-sighted of both direct mailers as well as the Postal Service to assume that: a) such an interpretation of the law will always prevail, or b) other alternatives may not supplant the need for many people to have "old-fashioned" mail boxes at all.

Moreover, it should also be recognized that, for purposes of processing business-quality information in a business-quality fashion, E-mail is a stage of immaturity through which we must pass.

8. Hagel and Singer's reference to the role of infomediaries in gathering vendor performance data so as to be able to act as a "mini Consumer Reports" highlights both the flaw in their logic as well as the potential to "get it right." By definition, merchants are opening themselves, their products and services, to scrutiny by whatever "public" with whom they desire to profit by exchange of value. By contrast, individuals are making no such offer in the conduct of their private lives. To the degree that infomediaries can and will enhance the efficiency, effectiveness, and comprehensiveness of vendor performance measures, such services will add real value to the consumer economy and infomediaries are entitled to a reasonable return on such values. However, the appropriate uses of personal data are far more limited and should be severely restricted in instances where the individual him or herself has not explicitly agreed.

9. Hagel and Singer's reference to the benefits of intermediation for "customer acquisition" betrays the bias that pervades the treatment of personal data, even among those who pay lip service to "customer focus." Customers are not slaves nor should they be considered to be "for sale" or "acquisition". In the context of information technology (IT) and systems, individuals are the data by which they are represented. No one but they themselves should have direct access to or control over their digital selves.

10. The Federal Activities Inventory Reform Act of 1998 requires agencies to compile inventories of work that could be outsourced.

OMB Circular A-76 sets forth federal policy for determining whether commercial activities associated with conducting the government's business will be performed by federal employees or private contractors. Recent revisions to the A-76 Supplemental Handbook were designed to enhance federal performance through competition and choice, seek the most cost-effective means of obtaining commercial products and support services, and provide new administrative flexibility in agency decisions to convert to or from in-house, contract, or Interservice Support Agreement (ISSA) performance. (GSA)

Certain functions are inherently Governmental in nature, being so intimately related to the public interest as to mandate performance only by Federal employees. However, Circular A-76 provides that the Government shall not start or carry out any activity to provide a commercial product or service if the product or service can be procured more economically from a commercial source. (Air Force)

The Revised Supplemental Handbook on Circular A-76, dated March 1996, is available at http://www2.whitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/OMB/html/circulars/a076/a076s.html.

11. It seems obvious that a hierarchical structure is not only appropriate but required for some organizations and purposes, such as the military and going to war. While it is beyond the scope of this discourse to consider such examples in any detail, this author suspects that a full and fair analysis might ultimately reveal those purposes to be inappropriate subversions of the rights and interests of the many to the few as well.

12. In explaining why he is not a manager, Samuelson (1999) notes the difficulties they face reconciling the "imperatives" of the "Organization" with the "needs" of the "Individual." He says, "The common craving is control; the common fear is chaos. But the latter is rising while the former is falling." Under the circumstances, he suggests, the best companies can do is, "Pray for dumb competitors."

13. Frank and Cook argue:

Although the contestants in winner-take-all markets are often entities other than persons, contests with high stakes almost always generate a set of closely related contests that do involve persons... the ultimate winner-take-all contestants are persons ... (pp. 29 & 30) 14. In RFC 1355: Privacy and Accuracy Issues in Network Information Center Databases, Curran and Marine (1992) proffered the following principles:

1) Describe why the NIC needs the information and how it will use the information.

2) List of all the information being stored in an entry.

3) Detail which information will be made available outside of the NIC, to whom it will be made available, and for what purpose.

4) Provide for notification of any person or organization added to the database at the request of a third party.

5) Explain how to have the information changed or updated.

6) Explain how to get information removed from the database, including any references to one's information in another's database entry.

7) Explain the consequences of removing information from the database and of failing to provide all or part of the information a NIC requests.

The privacy policy enables people to make informed decisions regarding which information to supply for a given NIC database. Any information supplied should treated in a manner consistent with the current privacy policy. If a NIC makes a database available in its entirety to another organization, the NIC should also provide that organization with a copy of the current privacy policy for the database.

15. From the perspective of the individual, it is unclear what it means to exclude from the definition of "personal information" to be protected the "information exchanged in the course of interactions inherent to the operation of the HTTP protocol or related protocols." However, it is clear that such a definition places the needs of the system and its "protocols" above the interests of the individual using them. If indeed this is an essential requirement, the justification should be made explicit.

16. Satran quotes Schmidt as saying, "Novell views directory and identity as two sides of the same coin."

17. Wells Branscomb goes on to say:

With the new automated number identification devices ... merchants can use the ten-digit number to access your files and your records of purchases without even asking for the number. Most of them seek, in addition, your ZIP Code, since this can be correlated to give very accurate data about lifestyles, real estate values in the neighborhood, and purchasing practices. All of these can be used to pigeonhole your family into a category of purchasing habits that indicate how attractive a target you are for direct marketing of a given product. 18. Nelson (undated) provides a brief history of EDI standards, as follows:

The syntax comprises the rules that define how a message is assembled for exchange. Three syntaxes dominate in the world of EDI: ANSI ASC X.121 (often called ANSI X.12), UNTDI2 and EDIFACT3. ANSI X.12 is the dominant standard in North America and is also widely used in Australia and New Zealand. UNTDI used to dominate in Western Europe, and messages using this syntax are still widely used in the UK as a part of the TRADACOMS message set. However, the only international syntax standard is EDIFACT.

EDIFACT was born in 1985 as a merge between the best features of UNTDI and ANSI X.12 and out of recognition that in the world of commerce, transportation and administration there could no longer be national or regional syntax standards. In fact, no new messages will be developed using ANSI X.12 after 1995 and in many industry sectors, such as insurance, travel and leisure, statistics, health and social administration, the only syntax standard used is EDIFACT. CEN4 will start to adopt chosen EDIFACT messages as the European standard from this year.

An EDI standard comprises the syntax, the message design rules (i.e. the technical rules which must be followed when designing a message) and the directories (i.e. the messages themselves and the building blocks of the messages: segments, data elements and codes).

19. Perhaps it would make sense to establish a streamlined and highly automated mechanism within the directory itself whereby a jury of peers can quickly and easily be convened to judge and assess penalties for abuses of the system and awards to those harmed. In some cases, the entire process might be completely automated based upon the data in the system itself, e.g., the assessment of a penalty and award of recompense for an E-mail message sent to someone who had not authorized its receipt.

20. In nature, it is the parasite that benefits from its relationship with the host. However, in the present paradigm of the Net, it is the host who is placed in the position of power to extract disproportionate benefit from the "client" - an interesting case of reverse parasitism. The paradigm becomes even more curious due to the fact that it has yet to generate profits on the Internet for many of the hosts. Perhaps it is time to reconsider the paradigm, especially since a primary impediment to E-commerce is the fear that personal information and resources will be misappropriated and misused.

21. RFC 2116: X.500 Implementations Catalog-96 (Apple and Rossen) lists X.500 implementations based on the results of data collection via a Web page that enabled implementors to submit new or updated descriptions, including commercial products and openly available offerings. RFC 2116 revised RFC 1632, which revised RFC 1292.

22. Woodward (1998) suggests that Congress should encourage biometric applications by mandating the adoption of a biometric blueprint based on a Code of Fair Information Practices (CFIP) embodying five basic principles:

2. Access: The individual (or data subject) has the right to access his information in the database. Specifically, the individual must be able to find out if his biometric identification information is in the database and how it is being used by the data collector. Accordingly, the data collector would be required to disclose its privacy practices.

3. Correction Mechanism: The individual must be able to correct or make changes to any biometric identification information in the database. As one of the technical advantages of biometrics is that they are based on physical characteristics or personal traits which rarely change over time, this principle would likely not be called into play too often.

4. Informed Consent: Before any information can be disclosed to third parties, the individual must consent. The individual must voluntarily and knowingly provide his biometric identification information to the data collector in the primary market. Once in the possession of the data collector, this information would then be governed by a use limitation principle. This means that the individual has consented that the information she provided would be used in the primary market for a purpose defined by the data collector and known to the individual. The individual must knowingly consent to any exchange, such as buying and selling of his biometric identification information, before it could be traded in a secondary market. Reasonable exceptions can be accommodated as appropriate for academic research and law enforcement, for example.

5. Reliability & Safeguarding: The organization responsible for the database must guarantee the reliability of the data and safeguard the information. Any data collector that collects and stores biometric identification information must guarantee the reliability of the data for its intended use and must take precautions to safeguard the data. At its most basic level, appropriate managerial and technical controls must be used to protect the confidentiality and integrity of the information. The controls would include making the database and the computer system physically secure. Data collectors should explore the option of encrypting the biometric data to help further safeguard the information from disclosure. Perhaps, policymakers should consider providing criminal sanctions for willful disclosures, or consider providing for the recovery of civil damages when biometric identification information is disclosed without the consent of the individual.

23. Mark Tucker of the Delphi Group (1998, October) noted that knowledge could be more effectively leveraged in the insurance industry but that the reluctance to do so can be traced to the basic argument over "who owns the customer." He suggests that with the right incentives, the agent or broker could be enticed into sharing more customer knowledge. In an E-mail exchange with Mr. Tucker, the author conveyed the following:

The value that folks like you might be able to add is the evaluation of the *tools* by which that proposition might best be served. If X.500 might be a worthy vehicle for the assimilation and sharing of personal data in a controlled and secure fashion, consumers may not be smart or grateful enough to compensate you directly. However, perhaps some of your corporate customers might see the wisdom of rewarding you for advice that enlightens them to the vast untapped market potential of the concept.

(In a "winner-take-all society," he who first assumes the role of the intersecting entity in the M:N relationship between consumers and vendors will be well positioned to "cross the chasm" and may be handsomely rewarded for it.)

Value to consumers -- What a concept!

24. The premise is that having equipment on the customers' premises serves their best interests, a logical assumption as far as many organizations and locations are concerned. However, the premise takes on an entirely different flair in the context of personal privacy, one that heretofore has seldom, if ever, be adequately aired.

25. In an E-mail exchange dated April 18, 1999, Lorrie Faith Cranor indicated that P3P probably does not have any relationship to telephony "as it is being designed specifically for use with the HTTP protocol." She noted:

P3P ... is not a product or a service, but a (hopefully eventually standard) specification of 1) a vocabulary that Web sites can use to express their privacy practices in machine-readable form (encoded ini XML./RDF), 2) a protocol for exchanging privacy practices and data between Web sites and user agents 3) a base data set of standard data types that might be exchanged. Related to P3P is APPEL, a standard language for encoding user privacy preferences for use by user agents. P3P can be implemented as part of Web browsers, proxies, plug-ins, or other products. The P3P vocabulary or even the entire P3P protocol may be used as part of some of the infomediary services. 26. The Department of Defense has specified the requirements for the management of electronic records and is certifying commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products that meet those requirements. The so-called 5015.2 standard is directed toward meeting the statutory requirements applicable to U.S. federal agencies, and the National Archives and Records Administration has endorsed it for use by all Executive Branch agencies. However, the logical and technical requirements are broadly applicable to all electronic records created and maintained by all organizations. Indeed, Australia has proposed the establishment of an international standard for records management. Clearly, the rapid adoption and universal usage of such a standard is in the interest of the "customer" and any proprietor that resists or refuses to participate should be made to pay the consequences in the marketplace.

27. Norman outlines seven POET principles, the last of which is particularly pertinent to this discussion:

Use both knowledge in the world and knowledge in the head.
Simplify the structure of tasks.
Make thing visible: Bridge the gulf of Execution and Evaluation.
Get the mappings right.
Exploit the power of constraints, both natural and artificial.
Design for error.
When all else fails, standardize.

Those who believe the rights and interests of individuals are being well-served by current marketing paradigms are free to denigrate the importance of the latter principle. However, at least they would do well to take all of these principles into account in designing their own, proprietary, quasi-, anti- or non-customer-focused applications.

28. Unfortunately, the use of phone numbers and addresses as aliases for people is no longer merely a matter of efficiency with respect to database administration. To an increasing degree, anonymity seems to be a matter of personal security for government officials - not only in terms of personal identification but perhaps even more importantly in terms of location. From a strategic standpoint, it may no longer make sense to mass government workers in huge monuments to politicians. Indeed, ultimately, it may no longer make sense to concentrate power in political oligarchies at all. It is far beyond the scope of this discourse to delineate much less fully explore the logical implications of such a line of thought. However, it is not difficult to imagine a future in which far more than personal IDs and "data elements" are effectively and efficiently represented in a standards-based, worldwide "directory" ... a future in which organizational conformance to the technical standard frees and empowers personal self-expression ... a future in which personal beliefs, preferences, and objectives could be far more productively supported in alliances facilitated by digital means, rather than by firearms, bombs, and other means of "mass" destruction ... or, for that matter, even elections ... which effectively glorify a few, often if not always, directly and indirectly, at the expense of the many.

29. With reference to workflow automaton, some people are beginning to realize that it may not make sense to mix up their E-mail with their "work". Discussion of the appropriate use of E-mail versus electronic document/records management (EDMS/ERMS) technology is beyond the scope of this discourse. Interested readers are invited to refer to the author's home page for further discussion of that topic, at http://www.erols.com/ambur. Suffice to say, "E-mail is a stage of immaturity through which we must pass."

30. The use of non-automated means (e.g., regular mail, paper forms, etc.) to populate a person's record in the directory simply would mean that either they would need to pay or someone else would have to assume the expense of entering and maintaining their data for them. For those who are unequipped or for any reason prefer not to maintain their own data, the role of intermediaries - including non-profit, public interest groups - would be highly appropriate. Indeed, to the degree that substantial public expense could be offset, it would even be justifiable to devote tax dollars to establishing the directory.

31. In terms of direct service offerings, this does not appear to differ substantially from the early vendors of digital persona services. However, what seems to be lacking is a commitment to the use of an open-system standard, whereby individuals truly can "own" their own data and not be bound to any particular vendor. To the degree that current offerings are based upon "proprietary" requirements, they are creating a needless impediment to customer "acquisition" even as they perform a disservice to the customers they do attract.

32. Frank and Cook (p. 123) observe:

Although our focus has been on the inefficiencies that result from winner-take-all markets, we must again emphasize that there can be great social gains when the best performers serve wider markets. But even the most carefully conceived social institutions cannot identify the best performers free of charge. When we say that winner-take-all markets tend to be inefficient under market incentives, what we mean is that these incentives tend not to minimize the cost of identifying the best performers. Therein lies one of the great potentials of open-systems, standards-based electronic commerce - in which not only can the best performers be quickly and easily identified based upon parameters automatically recorded in the normal course of business in a worldwide marketplace, but the marginal value of performance differences among vendors can automatically be determined as well. The net result should not only be to reduce the incidence of winner-take-all markets and the premiums commanded by the top performers but also, more importantly, to deliver best values to individual consumers at the lowest marginal costs.

33. McCarthy (1999) reports that Senator Murkowski has introduced the Inbox Privacy Act, which would force E-mail marketers to identify themselves by making it illegal to hide behind false addresses. Junk E-mailers would be required to honor requests to be removed from mailing lists and would have to "submit to electronic stop signs put up by Internet domain owners to block unwanted solicitations."

34. At its Brainshare conference, Novell (1999, March 22) announced that Citigroup and FirstUSA are partnering with Novell to create secure ID solutions for the Internet.