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HP CEO calls for better Web privacy laws

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CIOL Bureau
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Peter Henderson

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ASPEN; (Colorado): The chief executive of one of the world's largest computer

makers kicked off a conference on resuscitating the New Economy by calling for

government legislation to ensure privacy for Web users.

Carly Fiorina, the head of the printer and computer giant Hewlett-Packard

Co., said the industry had not lived up to its leadership responsibilities in

setting such standards.

"I think we in the technology industry have fallen in love with

technology. And in the end it is not about the technology. Privacy and security

or trust is vital to consumers, and that is what we should focus on. There is a

role for legislation." Fiorina told a conference organized by the Progress

& Freedom Foundation think tank in this Colorado Mountain Resort.

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Privacy has become a key issue for Web surfers fearful they are giving up

information they want to keep confidential. The privacy issue has largely boiled

down to whether the government should make regulations, and risk gumming up the

Web, or let the industry police itself, perhaps ineffectively.

Fiorina's comments follow calls initiated late last year by Louis Gerstner,

chairman and chief executive of computer giant International Business Machines

Corp., for greater government regulation on Internet privacy. There is also a

broader question of how consumers should consent to the use of their personal

information.

For instance, Microsoft Corp.'s Passport system to collect personal data to

ease electronic commerce has raised hackles in the industry and among consumers,

but is only one example of the widespread concern. But the easiest protection -

blocking data - also would trip up burgeoning Web commerce, Fiorina argued.

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Some kind of cooperation between rival companies would probably be needed to

solve the problem, but regulators are fearful that corporations could

collaborate against the consumer, Fiorina said.

Hewlett-Packard's manager for technology policy, Scott Cooper, said the

government should pass a law to require web sites to clearly and conspicuously

post what information they collect and how they use it a sharp turn from the

legalese buried on many sites today.

"That's not clear and that's not conspicuous," Cooper said of

current approaches. Beyond that, industry needed to come together to find

solutions to further solutions that would not necessarily require legislation,

he said. Progress & Freedom Foundation chairman George Keyworth, who is also

a member of the Hewlett-Packard board, told the conference, "What we have

not seen a lot of recently is clever ideas."

Progress & Freedom Foundation is known for opposing government

regulation, which many at the conference argued could bog down the free flow of

the Internet. Byron Buck, chief executive of ePrivacy Network, a start-up

developing ways for consumers to choose what information to give out to build

trust and choices for giving out information. "If you refuse to give out

your information, you don't get anything," he argued.

(C) Reuters Limited 2001.

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