Anatomy Of A Netscam - Reply To Lester -Re

[Howard Pasternack]

It's been a while since I disagreed with Dan in a posting, but I am sort
of suprised not to find more comments on the privacy issue in this morning's
mail.

I don't think the issue relates solely to Yahoo or similar services.  It is
really much broader.  As near as I can tell there seem to be no ethical
or legal foundations governing use of web sites which are in any way
analagous to the American Library's Association's tenets concerning the
confidentiality of library records.

Does ALA have a policy governing confidentiality of access to electronic
information?

Are there any legal restrictions anywhere protecting privacy?  In Rhode Island,
privacy rests not only on ALA's policies, but on state law based on the
ALA policies mandating that library use records be confidential.

As more and more information migrates to the Web, what is to prevent
not only Yahoo from reselling the logon information, but also private
webmasters from using access logs in ways which compromise the identity of
users?


Howard Pasternack
Brown University