Internet privacy: Britain in the dock

Britain’s failure to protect its citizens from secret surveillance on the internet is to be investigated by the European Commission.The move will fuel claims that Britain is sliding towards a Big Brother state and could end with the Government being forced to defend its policy on internet privacy in front of judges in Europe.The legal action is being brought over the use of controversial behavioural advertising services which were tested on BT’s internet customers without their consent.Yesterday, the EU said it wanted “clear consent” from internet users that their private data was being used to gather commercial information about their web shopping habits.
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/internet-privacy-britain-in-the-dock-1668844.htmlRobert Verkaik: Law has struggled to keep up with technology
In recent months opponents of the Big Brother surveillance society have concentrated their fire on government plans to create a giant database of everyone’s email and mobile phone communications. But a much more insidious invasion of our privacy on the internet is driven by profits rather than politics. The phenomenal growth in internet shopping represents a marketing dream that if properly harnessed promises to generate the kind of wealth not seen since the dot.com boom of the late 1990s. No wonder companies like Phorm, who have led the way in web-browser tacking, are not alone in seeing the potential.
www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/robert-verkaik-law-has-struggled-to-keep-up-with-technology-1668846.html