[Foundation-l] Re: Privacy concerns

[W. Guy Finley]

On 10/23/05 5:35 AM, "Any File" <anysomefile at gmail.com> wrote:

> Chris Jenkinson  wrote on Privacy concerns
> 
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> We had a rather large discussion today on privacy and its application on
>> Wikipedia (specifically anonymous editing and the checkuser tool which
>> is the subject of much debate at the moment).
>> 
>> I am curious to whether the Wikimedia Foundation's privacy policy is
>> compatible with EU legislation on privacy (which is tightly regulated),
>> and whether it is obliged to be, as the Foundation hosts servers in the
>> European Union (which are presumably subject to EU law).
> 
> Are any server located in the UE? Are only Paris and Amsterdam squid
> present in UE or something more?
> 
> As a fist answer (actully problem in answering to this question) is
> that there *NOT* exists a UE law on privacy, UE has approvved a law
> about that but it is not a law in the strict sense. Every state of UE
> has approved its own law about that basing that on the rights
> explained in the UE decisions (yes, I know it is a very difficult
> thing, very difficult to understand).
snip



Okay, I have a headache already but I should have known that.  Was listening
to Adam Curry's "Daily Source Code" a few days ago and his Euro lawyer pal
started off a conversation saying "the minute you say 'EU' you know that a
massive headache is about to occur" or something like that.

An IP address cannot in any way, shape, or form be considered to be private
information and I'm amazed there can be rants back and forth about this.

It's as simple as this -- you elect to visit Wikipedia, in turn your IP and
your activity is stored.  This is no different than you calling me and I
keep your phone number in my caller ID.  The key is that YOU initiated the
contact and therefore open yourself up to sharing a bit of information as to
what you were doing and where you were doing it from.

Make admins sign NDA's about log info?  Unbelievable.  There is NOTHING
personally identifying there and I would be very interested for someone to
demonstrate what malicious intent could be subscribed to someone reviewing
one's activity in the logs.  "Oooooh, look, I got his IP, now I can get a
bunch of credit cards in his name."  Umm....no.

Secondly, it's sort of saying that if you come over to my house I'm not
allowed to tell anyone what you did or how long you were here because that
would be personal information.  Again, hogwash.

--Guy