TECHNOCRAT.NET - RFC: PIP - Privacy & Intellectual Property. This is a request for comments on the setting up of a group solely concerned with advocating the sensible and balanced application of privacy and intellectual property.

The Industry Standard: EPIC Blasts Yahoo for Identifying Posters. Like other service providers, Yahoo will release identifying information in the face of a subpoena. But unlike its rivals, Yahoo doesn't notify the member whose identity is being revealed, so the member can't fight the subpoena in court.

Fox news is supposed to have a segment in their TV news show (10PM) on the downfalls of giving up your privacy for one of those free PCs. In NYC that would be on Channel 5 at 10 PM. Check your local listings for your time and channel

It seems the ad I heard was slightly misleading. It was actually the pitfalls of using your computer and the internet to get free products. Besides giving out personal info you got very small samples not full size products. Not as interesting as I thought it would be.

CNET.com - News - The Net - RealNetworks faces second privacy suit. RealNetworks today was hit with a second class-action lawsuit that accuses the company of violating the privacy of millions of Net music listeners.

FTC - Public Workshop: On-Line Profiling.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration ("NTIA") of the United States Department of Commerce and the Federal Trade Commission have determined to hold a public workshop on "online profiling," the practice of aggregating information about consumers' preferences and interests, gathered primarily by tracking their movements online, and using the resulting consumer profiles to create targeted advertising on Web sites.

This was held November 8,1999

Slashdot | Your Rights Online | Tap-Tap-Tapping the Net.

Washington Post - Internet Industry Debates Wiretapping.

The programmers and engineers who design and maintain the Internet are heading for a showdown with the FBI over whether the global computer network should be made wiretap-friendly.

The issue comes up tonight in meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in Washington. The group has been debating just how far it should go to help law enforcement officials conduct wiretaps--especially now that some telephone traffic is moving onto the Internet.

An Open Letter to the Internet Engineering Task Force - Letter to IETF.

We are writing to urge the IETF not to adopt new protocols or modify existing protocols to facilitate eavesdropping. Based on our expertise in the fields of computer security, cryptography, law, and policy, we believe that such a development would harm network security, result in more illegal activities, diminish users' privacy, stifle innovation, and impose significant costs on developers of communications. At the same time, it is likely thatInternet surveillance protocols would provide little or no real benefit for law enforcement.

The letter has a long list of signers including folks from the EFF, EPIC, CDT, ACLU, MIT, Harvard, Harvard Law, PSInet, ACM, SRI, UCLA School of Law, IEEE, and many other recognizable names.

Political News from Wired News - RealNetworks in Real Trouble. Internet music consumers took RealNetworks to court Wednesday over recently discovered user-tracking behavior in the company's Internet music software.

Thanks again to Dave Winer, of UserLand (the authors of Frontier), for your mention of Privacy Digest on Scripting News and news.userland.com. I assume that I reach a lot of your readers via your news aggregator at my.userland.com, but its nice to see them drop by in person.

BTW if you haven't read the bottom of the pages at my site; Frontier is the CMS (Content Management System) I use to create my sites.

New York Times - free registration required House Passes Bill Giving Weight to Digital Contracts. The House on Tuesday passed legislation that would give electronic contracts the same legal weight as their traditional paper counterparts, overriding the objections of consumers groups and the Clinton Administration.

Political News from Wired News - The Fed's Deadbeat Database.

A vast federal database will be used to identify Americans who default on student loans or who should not be receiving unemployment benefits, according to a bill scheduled for debate Wednesday by the US House of Representatives.

This is the database that was created as part of a sweeping 1996 welfare reform law to track fathers who did not pay child support. It was known as the "Deadbeat Dads" bill. The public was guaranteed that this would be the only use of the database and there would be no uses added at a latter date. Folks who questioned that promise were called hysterical and told that they didn't like children. Every database administrator knows that once you put together a database someone will always come up with more uses for it.

'Deadbeat Dad' Database Endangers Everyone (Commentary April 30, 1998) by Doug Bandow a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. (This article originally appeared in Investors Business Daily.)

Slashdot | Articles | Hotmail Implements Spam Filter System.

The Detroit News - Justices hear agruments about student 'activity fees' - 11/9/99. The Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in an important free speech dispute over whether a public university can force students to pay "activity fees" that are channeled to campus groups that engage in political advocacy the students might oppose.

space.com - Defense Agency Studies Satellite Refills, Upgrades. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a high-tech arm of the Pentagon, is working to develop a prototype system for refueling and upgrading spy satellites while in orbit. The project, called Orbital Express, could have implications for a broad range of space activities, military and civilian.

CNET.com - News - The Net - Truste reports on RealNetworks as FTC examines Net privacy.

ZDNet: PC Computing | You Are Being Watched. Today 40 million American workers are under surveillance at the office. Women make up 85 percent of that number, as they tend to occupy customer-service and data-entry positions, which are more commonly scrutinized. A recent survey by the American Management Association revealed that 40 percent of all major U.S. firms engage in some form of electronic monitoring of their employees