A basic legal framework

1. A basic legal framework

2. One of the tasks of a good Basic legal framework is to administrate agreements and contracts. A contract is an exchange of promises between two or more parties to do or refrain from doing an act which is enforceable in a court of law. This applies to make a trade between them without knowing each other, even though the economic transaction is important.

3. Toysmart’s Case • Here we have the example of toysmart (111) who was in bankrupt and tried to sell their database to other companies, something that make people feel uncomfortable. They trust on toysmart, entering to their site.

4. Usually people when enter to a webpage and this one requires personal information form the user, sometimes is not expressed how they are going to use this information. When you register in a webpage, you habitually accept the term and the contract that it is offered to you, and usually you accept thinking that his contract is going to protect you, or will not going to affect you. But there is the dilemma, not always all the information that is necessary to read in the contract always appears explicit, also, people just accept it without reading the contract because they earn time.

5. What should the Web site be legally permitted to do with the information? The legal system can set special confidentiality defaults for sensitive information, such as medical or organization wants to use information for purposes beyond the default, it would have to specify those uses in its policies, agreements, or contracts or request consent.

6. Contrasting viewpoints and the free-market view Juan Manuel Adame Rivera

7. People who prefer market-oriented solutions for privacy problems tend to emphasize the freedom of individuals, as consumers or in business, to make voluntary agreements; the diversity of individual tastes and values; the flexibility of technological and market solutions; the usefulness and importance of contracts.

8. The free-market is about the agreements in which the organizations inform the people about the information the will publish, and the confidentiality about that information. All these (it is more than obvious to say that this should free of money, taxes, etc.) Also, this market view should respect the people’s choices and their rights as well. Both business and people tend to avoid restrictive legislation, because this bans a lot of contracts or agreements that may violate this freedom of choice.

9. The free-market viewpoint sees privacy as a “good”, in the sense that it is both desirable and something we can obtain varying amounts of by buying or trading in the economy. As some people tend to choose for food, money, entertainment, and safety, while others choose different levels of privacy. Law can provide minimum standards but should allow the market to provide a wide range of options to meet the range of personal preferences.

10. The Consumer Protection View Advocates of strong privacy regulation emphasize the unsettling uses of personal information, the costly and disruptive results of errors in databases, and the ease with which personal information leaks out, through loss, theft and carelessness.

11. They argue for: • More stringent consent requirements. • Legal restrictions on consumer profiling. • Prohibitions on certain types of contracts to disclose data. • Prohibitions on business collecting or storing certain kinds of data. The focus of this viewpoint is to protect consumers against abuses and carelessness by business and against their own lack of knowledge, judgment, or interest. They emphasize that people do not realize all the ways other might use information about them.

12. Consumer advocate and privacy “absolutist” Mary Gardiner Jones does not accept the idea of consumers to dissemination of personal data. She said: “ You can’t expect an ordinary consumer who is very busy trying to earn a living to sit down and understand what consent means. They don’t understand the implications of what use of their data can mean to them.” A consumer cannot realistically negotiate contract terms with a business. At any specific time, the consumer can only accept or reject what the business offers.

13. In the consumer-protection view, self-regulation by business does not work Business privacy polices are weak, vague, or difficult to understand. Business sometimes does not follow their stated policies. The consumer pressure is sometimes effective, but some companies ignore it. The consumer-protection viewpoint sees privacy as a right rather than something we bargain about.

14. Privacy regulations in the European Union

15. The privacy of consumer data in Europe was supposed to be enhanced in 1998, when the European Union (EU) enacted a directive aimed at protecting consumers and regulating when and how companies could collect personal data. The directive, called the EU Data Protection Act, required the adoption of all EU member states.

16. The objective of the Act is to protect the “fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons, and in particular their right to privacy with respect to the processing of personal data." Under the Act, user data must be collected for a specific purpose, must be processed lawfully, and cannot be retained any longer than required.

17. Companies based in the United States can therefore avoid any issues related to data privacy with EU member nations by adhering to the safe harbor framework. • The agreement is also designed to protect European businesses, which can be assured they are exchanging data with a trustworthy US-based firm should they decide to do so. • Participating in the framework also allows companies to assure consumers that the company is concerned about protecting the privacy of their personal data.

18. PROBLEMATICS • While 350 fairly recognizable companies joining the safe harbor agreement may sound like a feat at first, it is also a reflection of how much education is still required about European privacy regulations among American firms. • Only 350 companies have joined the safe harbor pact in a span of two years, which does not exactly indicate that companies are rushing to comply with the EU's privacy regulations.

19. 2.5.1 Wiretapping and E-Mail Protection Telephone • Within ten years of the invention of the telephone, people were wiretapping them. Before that, people intercepted telegraph communications. • Wiretapping: the recording or monitoring of private conversations by connecting listening equipment to a telephone line. • Wiretapping was debated throughout most of the 20 century. In 1937 it was sated that wairetapping violated the law, but in 1967 the Supreme Cort allowed wiretapping with a court order. (The main argument was the necessity to combat organized crime.) It must be justify for criminal investigation and the permission is granted for a limited time period. • They used a pen register to obtain number called (collection of information) and a trap and trace logs the numbers from which incoming calls originate. Debate continue whether wiretapping is good or not, since many people perform illegal monitoring.

20. E-mail and other new communications • Old laws did not cover e-mail and cell phone conversations, and interception was common when they were new, it was a popular form of industrial spying in 1980s. • The Electronic Communications Privacy Act made wiretapping restrictions to electronic communication, including e-mail, cellular phones and paging devices. This was a significant step forward protecting privacy in cyberspace from privates and government. It requires that the government gets a cort order to legally intercept e-mail or read stored e-mail. • Controversy continue about the law to approve the copies of stored e-mail, arguing that people give up their expectation of privacy and that people can extract anyone´s e-mail; but this argument was not convincing.