A new federal law requiring banks, insurers and securities firms to handle customers' personal information with more care was supposed to quell the demand for financial privacy restrictions.

At least that's what industry insiders hoped last fall when they agreed to go along with privacy rules included in the historic Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which overhauled the financial services industry for the first time in six decades.

But privacy advocates who thought the rules were too weak included a small provision in the law allowing states to enact tougher rules of their own.

San Jose Mercury News - Dan Gillmor: Our lives should not be open to everyone.

I admit to being something of a privacy nut lately. The more I learn about the ways businesses and government are spying and compiling dossiers on us, the more I'm convinced this issue is going to grow into an unstoppable outcry against the spying and misuse of data.

The media haven't done nearly a good enough job covering this story. In the popular press, the Washington Post's Robert O'Harrow, who was a co-panelist at the journalism conference where I voiced my concerns, has been just about the only journalist to truly probe the subtleties.

San Jose Mercury News / Dan Gillmor's eJournal  (News, Views and a Washington Diary) - The Boundaries of Privacy. Journalists are getting more attuned to the privacy issue, but our coverage is begging a difficult question. Some of the tools of our trade are being used to invade privacy.

InfoWorld - They are everywhere you want to be -- and even where you don't want them.

I can agree the uncertainty is gone, but only because I think it's certain that Amazon will do as it pleases. I could argue point by point where the loopholes are in the restrictions Curry says Amazon is imposing on itself, but it's not worth the effort. Why not? Because this new one could change at any time. It contains a pointed sneakwrap term: "Our business changes constantly," it reads. "This Notice and the Conditions of Use will change also, and use of information that we gather now is subject to the Privacy Notice in effect at the time of use."

Got that? The information they gather now is subject to the privacy policy in effect, then.

Guardian Unlimited (UK) | Netnews | New blow to internet banking security. Ralph Dressel, a 28-year-old software analyst at Royal Skandia lnvestment bank, contacted The Observer having obtained bank security details that allowed him to 'walk' straight into internet bank accounts at institutions across the US.

Slashdot | Internet Banking Security Hole.