Disconnecting The Data For Privacy

from the real-privacy? dept

While the government and direct marketing firms have been doing everything they possibly can to combine various databases about you to understand more about you, one company is working hard to help you keep your data separate, so that you can have real privacy. That, at least, is the goal of Privacy Inc. that has a plan to let people use disposable information for all different interactions with companies. For example, you could use a disposable credit card number, a disposable email address and a disposable home address with an order of a book at Amazon. Amazon wouldn't know any additional info about you, but the disposable address would alert UPS or whoever was delivering the package to deliver it to your real address. The credit card number would only work for that transaction, and the email address could be programmed to go away after the order was complete, or maybe left in place - but only for Amazon to send emails. Right now, it looks like the company is only offering disposable email addresses - which are nothing new and plenty of companies already do this (some of them for free - like Sneakemail). It's not really clear from the article how the other parts will really work in practice, but it's an interesting idea in an age when everyone else wants to have all the information about you - this company is hoping to let you keep your info as private as possible, while still letting you function in today's world.

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