My opinions, and not those of my employer, follow.
I'm totally in agreement with Mr. Thoen. And I bristle at the
"driving-as-privilege" rationalization. Of course, when one remembers that
this is the United States of Advertising, as I noticed someone calling
themselves on a utility-download page, such thinking is, sadly, par for the
course.
Tell the person who cannot afford to live convenient to work, in a place
where public transit doesn't exist, that (s)he must surrender an inordinate
amount of privacy without his/her knowledge or consent just to put food on
the table: to eat, they must work; to work, they must drive; to drive, they
must bend over and take it crudely from marketers. While I'm not in those
straits myself, I have been, and some people I know personally are right
now. Besides, even if driving were a "privilege," why should it follow that
anyone with enough cash has the *RIGHT* to purchase the demographic details
of individuals? Shouldn't that information be "privileged?"
Of course, as GIScientists, we can just bury our heads in the sand and
geocode/analyze numbly in pursuit of payday, oblivious to the erosion of
privacy to which we're contributing as we piss into our branch of the
Datastream. "Well, I'm just-a DOIN' muh JOB, sir!"
If I could write that in Deutsch for effect, I would. Mr. Thoen's comments,
alas, give me some hope.
---
B. Keathe Wright
GIS Analyst
AT&T Wireless Services
Redmond, WA USA
edress: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> ----------
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED][SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2000 2:50 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: MI License plates & addresses
>
> The base of this argument is that driving is not a right but rather a
> privilege therefor the individual is not protected under privacy rights
> issues.
>
> Why would we want to do this? I can think of a million reasons but the
> best
> fit for socially conscious GIS folks would be the predictive capability in
>
> traffic load modeling for transportation management.
>
> Myself, I would be looking for purchasing behavior but, then again, that's
> me.
>
> John Ketcham
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