SecurityFocus HOME Columnists: A Promise Falls in the Forest

I've blogged here time and time again that those people responsible for creating and enforcing our laws should be required to have a fucking clue about the industries and technologies that they're dealing with. I think I have to expand that sentiment to include just having a fucking clue in general.

Thanks to some jackass jurist in Minnesota, precendent has been set that a company can now write the strictest of privacy policy that they want, enticing you to give up your personal information, because once you give them that information ... it belongs to the company, and they can do whatever they want with it.

Better than that, the bozo goes onto say that policies on websites do not constitute contracts, and are not enforceable, because there is no evidence that consumers actually read the policies.

There's one last part that is so well summed up by this article, I'm just going to quote it here. And then I'm going to go someplace and SCREAM:

As a final insult, the Northwest airlines judge essentially resorted to the "so-what" defense. The court said that even if you read the policy, relied on it as a contract, agreed to part with your personal information in return for the promise of privacy and security, and then Northwest knowingly and deliberately breached this promise and shared your data with the government, you suffer no contractual damages as a result. Your real damages, according to the judge, are for invasion of privacy, not breach of contract, and since you no longer own that data, you have no privacy rights at all. A classic no-win situation.

 

Do go read the rest of the article, and then you might as well sign all of your worldly possessions to the corporation of your choice, because they're going to get them all one way or another as long as complete imbeciles are sitting on U.S. District Courts. I really hope this decision is appealed.