By Kim Tae-jong
Regulators should encourage competition among firms to become better protectors of customers' data, instead of making new punitive rules, a U.S. online privacy expert said recently.
"It's not just about regulations. Companies should know that they can damage their reputation and may lose a lot of money. But, we also want them to compete for the protection of privacy," Jeff Gould, president of SafeGov, said in an interview.
Gould is skeptical of the effectiveness of new regulations that politicians rush to come up with, and opposes the idea of banning companies from collecting customers' information because their services are too valuable to give up.
"This would be like safety for car manufacturers. Thirty or 40 years ago, cars were not so safe. They didn't have airbags. But if you look at Toyota, Hyundai and Honda, they're saying they have the best protection. You could have the same thing happen for privacy," he said.
Gould also stressed that companies should change the practice of unnecessarily collecting as much customer data as possible, because poor handling of that information can hurt them.
"We do want to tell companies to only collect the smallest amount of information they absolutely need and not to collect more than that. Until now, it seems that they have collected everything, as if they think they may need it one day. But they now see there are risks," he said.
Citing recent survey results, he said there has been growing awareness of the risks associated with online privacy, which is a positive sign because it can force companies to change their unfair practices, he said.
But he said the current issues involving financial information leaks were just "the tip of the iceberg" as long as companies continue to aggressively collect personal data in unfair manners for profit.
"Financial information leaks, as we've seen recently, are not the only kind of risk, there are other kinds," he said. "The more information that goes online, the more chances there are that something more can be leaked."
Some companies have improperly mined data while people use free web tools such as Google apps and Gmail, and this data-mining is especially harmful to children, he said.
"They're data-mining and profiling students. They read all email and look at everything that a child looks at on Youtube," he said.
"I'm giving up some privacy in exchange for something that I use for free, which is pretty good. However, in schools, it's not such a good idea. It could lead to unsafe behavior."
To protect online privacy, Gould suggests people should be more aware of risks they will face when providing their information and have more ownership of it.
"They should know that when they are giving valuable information about themselves, it's like giving money to banks."
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| Jeff Gould SafeGov president |
"It's not just about regulations. Companies should know that they can damage their reputation and may lose a lot of money. But, we also want them to compete for the protection of privacy," Jeff Gould, president of SafeGov, said in an interview.
Gould is skeptical of the effectiveness of new regulations that politicians rush to come up with, and opposes the idea of banning companies from collecting customers' information because their services are too valuable to give up.
"This would be like safety for car manufacturers. Thirty or 40 years ago, cars were not so safe. They didn't have airbags. But if you look at Toyota, Hyundai and Honda, they're saying they have the best protection. You could have the same thing happen for privacy," he said.
Gould also stressed that companies should change the practice of unnecessarily collecting as much customer data as possible, because poor handling of that information can hurt them.
"We do want to tell companies to only collect the smallest amount of information they absolutely need and not to collect more than that. Until now, it seems that they have collected everything, as if they think they may need it one day. But they now see there are risks," he said.
Citing recent survey results, he said there has been growing awareness of the risks associated with online privacy, which is a positive sign because it can force companies to change their unfair practices, he said.
But he said the current issues involving financial information leaks were just "the tip of the iceberg" as long as companies continue to aggressively collect personal data in unfair manners for profit.
"Financial information leaks, as we've seen recently, are not the only kind of risk, there are other kinds," he said. "The more information that goes online, the more chances there are that something more can be leaked."
Some companies have improperly mined data while people use free web tools such as Google apps and Gmail, and this data-mining is especially harmful to children, he said.
"They're data-mining and profiling students. They read all email and look at everything that a child looks at on Youtube," he said.
"I'm giving up some privacy in exchange for something that I use for free, which is pretty good. However, in schools, it's not such a good idea. It could lead to unsafe behavior."
To protect online privacy, Gould suggests people should be more aware of risks they will face when providing their information and have more ownership of it.
"They should know that when they are giving valuable information about themselves, it's like giving money to banks."
