[PCWorld]

Post your comments for We're all clueless about privacy, FTC is told at hearing here

[SteveM61]

Biggest violators of privacy laws are casinos who routinely share private customer information with direct competitors though various surveillance networks in direct violation of their own in-house privacy rules. They even have their own credit agency "Central Credit" who maintains records on casino credit lines and there is no way for customers to get a copy of their report to check for errors.

[TsarNikky]

One has to be very naive to think that anything done via the Internet would have any assurance of being private. Companies providing the "free" service are in it for the money, hence your data becomes their income.

[RDunn]

If information is there to be had, without restriction, without oversight... it -will- be abused. Personally, I don't want ANY 'targeted' advertising... it's bad enough surfing the web and getting political ads relevant to my home town. I do so not want to see local content blasted at me as I shop or work on the 'net. I am not eyes, ears, gullible mind to be bombarded. Constantly these ad/content providers think that the limited connection to the Internet, which I pay for, is their public pipeline to shove mega/gigabytes of ads and other unwanted data at me. I'm not paying so they can bombard me. For those ads which enable free services/sites on the 'net, I should be able to choose whether or not to use the services/sites by -knowing- the data coming at me, and being taken from me. If I pay for a taxi cab, marketers don't get to share it with me, yammering in my ear, shoving things in front of my eyes... even if they should offer me a scented moist towlette for free. I don't need the freebie... I should have the choice up front. Suppose telephone carriers started partnering with marketers, providing customer data to the marketers, and forcing customers to have to listen to marketing in order to use telephones... what would the FCC do to the carrier that did that without their approval? Opt-out is a lame default approach as an individual consumer would have to opt-out of millions of schemes... opt-in is the only reasonable method for people to control their personal info. Connection to the 'net is generally not free... except in some public venues, which we can choose whether or not to use. If marketers had to pay our ISP for the data usage they foist through our paid connections, that marketing would dry up in a hurry. Control that.