Editorial: Know Your Privacy Policy

A new administration is coming into office, and it will be concerned about subscribers' privacy rights.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [January 20, 2009]

Barack Obama's inauguration is today, but hopes and fears about his administration have been visible everywhere for some time, from a sharp rise in gun sales to a boom in Obama memorabilia to calls from lobbyists that began on election day.

At the top of the Obama-Biden technology agenda is the phrase "net neutrality." This means different things to different people but one thing it will come to mean to ISPs is that the ISPs' use of subscriber data will be scrutinized (we do not yet know by whom or how).

I have no secret pipeline or leak concerning the specifics of the Obama agenda, but this much is clear: every ISP should know where it stands on the issue of subscriber privacy. Some ISPs have strong pro-privacy stands (example: Bway.net), and others state directly in their privacy statement (example: NetZero) that user data is collected for marketing purposes.

In this article, I am not advocating for privacy or for the right of ISPs to gain revenue through targeted marketing. I'm simply suggesting that every ISP should have a clear privacy policy because there will be legislation or regulation on the topic.

Large ISPs are your friends
Many of the biggest companies are working hard to earn advertising revenue. AOL and others are working with Goodmail to obtain that revenue. The cable industry has built a joint venture called Canoe Ventures to measure TV viewership for advertisers (Canoe is not yet working on internet subscriber data, but I suspect that it intends to in the future). British Telecom has embraced Phorm, to some controversy.

The large ISPs will be lobbying for the right to sell user data to marketers, so if you want to do that too, the large ISPs are your friends.

If you are taking a privacy stand, the behavior of the large ISPs will enable you to differentiate your service from theirs.

Whatever you choose to do, now is a good time to review your privacy policy so that you can be prepared if legislators or regulators start making demands.

If you wish to influence the process, join an appropriate ISP association. ISP associations have existed for as long as the ISP industry has existed. Many run on very small budgets—few have even one professional, part time manager—and could well use your dues. For a small amount of money, these associations talk back to power and influence the legislation that affects you.

Although the larger companies have massive lobbying budgets, small ISPs can get the attention of politicians because everyone understands that small businesses drive job growth, and job growth will be a top priority—if not the number one priority—of the incoming administration.

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