Privacy Conference

The IAPP is an association of more than 1,000 of the world’s leading privacy and security professionals. The first day of their conference culminated in a very nice reception at The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, one of the largest museums in the Western world devoted exclusively to Asian art. Its contents include nearly 15,000 treasures spanning 6,000 years of history, representing cultures throughout Asia.

The IAPP partnered with TRUSTe, an independent, nonprofit privacy organization whose mission is to build users' trust and confidence on the Internet, to create the conference. Their combined focus on the subject of privacy will surely help accelerate growth of the Internet.

The first speaker the next morning was Howard Beales, Director, Bureau of Consumer Protection, at the Federal Trade Commission. Howard has a team of attornies who are constantly fighting the battle to stop identity theft, spam, and other consumer issues. Talk about a tough job! There have been some successes in taking the perpetrators to court and hopefully the visibility of them will act as a detrrent. I believe the major answer is from technology, however, and not from regulation. It was great to hear in the news today that the FTC has decided to not pursue the "do not spam" registry. I believe it would have been a huge target for hackers and unlikely to be effective. (read more)

Public Policy June 15, 2004 07:31 PM