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 COLUMN
Using and abusing information If the price of freedom is constant vigilance, maybe we've been looking in the wrong direction. It's not the lawmakers and the government agencies in Washington that we should be questioning but the technologists in the Silicon Valleys of the world who are designing new ways to track us -- with ever bigger and better bribes to make it all worthwhile.
And wireless technology will only make matters worse. You see, wireless isn't thought of as a miraculous technology that lets us communicate with our fellow human beings around the world. It's simply a new marketing channel. And the truth is that many of us who are in a business of one form or another can't help but marvel at some of the inventive marketing schemes companies devise. Safeway, using IBM technology, is piloting a wireless version of the Safeway Club Card concept, which, like most of the one-to-one models, basically says if you give up something about yourself, we'll pay you for it in the form of lower prices on things you like to buy. So Safeway U.K. is giving away Palm handhelds modified with a built-in scanner. Users scan the UPC codes on the food in their own cupboards so that Safeway can create and store a master shopping list for you. Then you can access the list through the Palm while you're at work, tick off what you're out of, place an order wirelessly, and pick up the groceries on the way home. And if you're worried about Safeway sharing your eating habits with other companies, their privacy policy states that Safeway will not disclose any personal information to any other company; however, the policy does go on to state, "Safeway may disclose personally identifying information in response to a subpoena, court order, or a specific request by a law enforcement agency, or as required by law." In other words, if you rob a bank and leave behind a Twinkie wrapper, you might as well turn yourself in. Once they match your MySafeway personal profile -- that I'm sure made you feel like such a special individual -- with the Twinkies, you're as good as caught. Yes, freedom can be an expensive proposition. I might have to give up my club card and lose all those discounts. I mean what's the big deal if my regular supermarket knows I like hot dogs, bologna, liverwurst, steak, Velveeta cheese, potato chips, and ice cream if I can get a discount on my next package of Ball Park Franks. And according to my favorite supermarket that won't disclose my personal info, there's one word in their privacy statement that does concern me: "Safeway does not disclose personally identifying information to other non-affiliated companies or persons for commercial purposes." Non-affiliated? It's not much of a big deal, I suppose, unless Safeway and my insurance company merge. Who knows whether a year or two down the road I might get a friendly letter from AllFarm Insurance telling me that AllFarm is happy to announce a new program of lower premiums for life insurance, with the program to be effective for 99 percent of its customers. And then they lower the boom. Because according to my shopping history, which was matched to AllFarm actuarial tables, I'm due for a heart attack any day now. I need to have my cholesterol checked or accept a higher rate for life insurance. With mergers and acquisitions steadily increasing, I wonder how many other companies have similar privacy policies promising only to keep information sacrosanct from "non-affiliated" companies? I don't want to leave the impression that it is only private industry that will abuse personal information. If state governments can in part justify motorcycle helmet laws by saying an injured cyclist becomes a burden on society, doesn't someone whose health is suffering because of poor eating habits also burden society? What harebrained laws might some legislator create with that mindset? By the way, the bribes being offered to give up information are getting bigger. Loyalty programs that offer points toward stock ownership in your favorite company for purchasing products are just now being unveiled. Sources say Starbucks may be one of the first to do this. For those who want to remain anonymous and don't want to be tracked but are tracked anyway via sophisticated monitoring technology or cookies (not the Oreo kind) that know where you came from and how long you stayed on each page, there is one solution I know of. At the moment, it's for the wired world from a company called Zero Knowledge Systems, in Montreal (www.zeroknowledge.com). But I spoke with them recently, and I believe they are working on a wireless version of their solution. For about $50 a year, they give you an ID management tool. They call the package Freedom, and it keeps the end-user in control of his or her identity by giving the user a cryptographically assured pseudonym -- five pseudonyms, in fact -- that allows you to browse on the Internet, accept cookies, look at ads, and even be marketed to on a one-to-one basis; only your real identify is hidden. If you feel a company is abusing the information they have, you can change your ID, and it is easier for you to do some tracking back to the source of the company because they are using your pseudonym. Zero Knowledge uses a cryptography scheme that it claims means that even though the company sells you the package, it cannot know who you are. "Trust good math over good will," Alex Fowler, one of the privacy experts at Zero Knowledge, told me. Finally, let me make one thing perfectly clear, I don't mean to pick on Safeway. They are just an example. I shop at Safeway all the time. I hope they still let me in. I fear that the next club card they give me will be embedded with a special sensor, and when I come up to the automatic doors, they just won't open. If you know of a particularly obnoxious abuse of privacy I might like to hear about, send me an e-mail at ephraim_schwartz@infoworld.com. InfoWorld Editor at Large Ephraim Schwartz is based in San Francisco. MORE > SPONSORED WHITE PAPERS 
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