Even if...
the hardware is secure... Humans can be bought.
"Each man has his price Bob, and yours was pretty low"
Roger Waters
The US federal consumer protection watchdog is barking at security and privacy risks posed by cloud computing. With ever-more products and services asking users to upload personal and sensitive information to centralized online servers in the nebulous (but trendy) notion of "the cloud," the US Federal Trade Commission is …
If we look at what Google wants (your data) to flog targeted marketing, this newfound enthusiasm for privacy might end up putting a serious crimp in Google at home.
Allow me to be cynical and assume tha there's too much money involved for that to ever happen, but the noise is good to wake everyone up for a bit.
So enterprising organisation has a business plan and technological support that may be above the ken of its user base.
Government watchdog observes "Hey! If you do that you gotta do it right, right?"
I may be mistaken but isn't that how things get done in a democracy?
Then government watchdog says something like "You can do it but we need service level agreements that uphold law of the land and national traditions.
If you foresake us we will descend upon you as the proverbial ton of bricks (and it will cost you money - lots of money"
Easy-peasy!
Seemplz
Tseech.
"larger amounts of data may be used by entities in ways not originally intended or understood by consumers,"
Consumers haven't a damned clue about how *any* of their data is stored and used full stop. Use of personal data should be under mandatory licence and it's misuse should constitute assault on the person.
Anyone else here reading “I.T. WARS”? I had to read parts of this book as part of my employee orientation at a new job. The book talks about a whole new culture as being necessary – an eCulture – for a true understanding of security, being that most identity/data breaches are due to simple human errors. It has a great chapter on security. Just Google “IT WARS” – check out a couple links down and read the interview with the author David Scott. (Full title is “I.T. WARS: Managing the Business-Technology Weave in the New Millennium”).
Your headline is right on target because as this plays out we will undoubtedly find out their bark is worse than their bite. As Fred says, there is too much money involved here, the corps and the lobbyists will gut any attempt to regulate this the same way the mass marketers turned the CAN-SPAM bill into a license to spam people silly. Those in government are all either too stupid or too corrupt to realize how their corporate sponsored advisers and consultants mislead them.
Remember, in the US "government of the people by the people for the people" is an obsolete and empty slogan. It now is "Government of the people by the corporations for maximum profit."