Web privacy policies mean ziltch (legally)

Published Wed, Jul 28 2004 7:26 | girishb

According to this article on arsTechnica: http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/20040727-4040.html, you dont have any rights on the personal information you pass to a online vendor.Once you give it away, its gone. The vendor can do whatever he pleases. Your bases belong to them.

Quote:

". the customer's "personally identifiable information" -- the stuff that the airline agreed to protect -- did not belong to the customer, because the customer "voluntarily provided some information that was included" in the information given to the government, and that when Northwest "compiled and combined" this information with other data it "became Northwest's property." The court concluded "Northwest cannot wrongfully take its own property." This analysis is not limited to airlines. Any company or entity is now free to say anything in order to induce you to part with your personal information (don't worry, it's secure, or we won't sell it), because once you give it up, it "belongs" to them."

Here is a link to the case PDF.

I dont know about you, but this makes me real paranoid.