Brian Holmes on 13 Feb 2001 11:00:56 -0000 |
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[Nettime-bold] Privacy anyone? |
Hi Ana - Thanks for the reply. Actually we agree on a lot of things - especially when you point to the excessive powers that corporations are gaining over their clients' personal data, and when you say that the urgent question is how what you're calling "institutional borders" will be implemented. The corps do have the tracking technologies, they will use them, and there already is the beginnings of a backlash against those uses. The question, in this and so many other areas of globalization, is what to do, now that the backlash has brought specific situations to the table? In other words, what kind of privacy to push for, and how? "Fighting back with code" does seem promising in the short run, for those who can do it, but I guess it's worth thinking about the general polity too. The two approaches aren't mutually exclusive. We also agree about the commodification of privacy. In the sentence of mine that you quote about the "lifetime value" issue (which was not clearly written, I think), I was just trying to say that Nortel is trying to turn us into "lifetime value" *for them*, i.e. they're trying to commodify us, to commodify our privacy. I think they do it not by constraining us in any way, as state agencies do with their files collected on us, but rather by stimulating and channeling certain kinds of desire. For me this is probably the most iniquitous part of the whole thing, because it contributes to the great process of remodeling subjectivity alonging market lines. Eliciting market-oriented desire. That's an old process (cf. TV) but it's off to a new start with data banks, tracking, and one-to-one marketing techniques. All that's surely Kafkaesque. But I still think there's a fine point about whether it's "fascistic." What you say, precisely, is that it's getting as bad as a fascist state, and there I agree. But I think it's going to operate quite differently than any fascist state ever has (and unfortunately, there's a traditional police state coming back right alongside it - cf. the way "anti-globalization" protestors are getting spied on right now, in Canada for instance). Finally, I think you hit the essential part when you write about borders: "..in the traditional model, the moment we cross the border, our anonymous condition is, in most cases, returned to us. What happens is that with the Internet--and increasingly with other wireless technologies--this is not the case. The system is created in such a way that its normal working involves an almost continuous collection of data." That's the situation. To understand what's at stake there, subjectively, socially, and politically, I think it would be necesary to develop a strong definition of privacy in relation to former legislation and social customs, and then try to see what the new situation does to the initial definition. I'll give a go at that argument when I get some time... best, Brian _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold