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2 Chi.-Kent J. Intell. Prop. [i] (2000)

handle is hein.journals/jointpro2 and id is 1 raw text is: Copyright C Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

A COMPANY'S GUIDE TO AN EFFECTIVE
WEB SITE PRIVACY POLICY
Quincy Maquet*
Privacy is the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine
for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is
communicated to others.
--Alan Westin
Information privacy is an individual's claim to control the terms under
which personal information--information identifiable to the individual--is
acquired, disclosed, and used. 
--Information Infrastructure Task Force2
I.     INTRODUCTION
The recent growth of the Internet has provided businesses new and exciting
opportunities to expand their business capabilities by using commercial Web sites. This
growth has not only benefited businesses, but also the consumer. The Internet now
provides the consumer with a wide variety of goods and services all at the click of a
mouse. However, this convenience also has a very significant drawback for consumers:
loss of privacy.
J.D./LL.M in Information Technology candidate at the John Marshall Law School in January
2001, and also the co-author (Mark Ishman) of A Consumer's Analysis of the Electronic Currency System
and the Legal Ramifications for a Transaction Awry, MURDOCH UNIVERSITY E-LAW JOURNAL,
Vol. 6, No. 3 (Sept. 1999), available in <http:// www.murdoch.edu/au/elaw/issues/v6n3/ishman63nf.htm>.
1 ALAN F. WESTIN, PRIVACY AND FREEDOM 7 (Atheneum, 1967). Alan Westin is generally
credited with the most well known definition of information privacy. See also ARTHUR R. MILLER, THE
ASSAULT ON PRIVACY: COMPUTERS, DATA BANKS, AND DOSSIERS 25 (1971) (exclaiming that
the basic attribute of an effective right of privacy is the individual's ability to control the circulation of
information relating to him--a power that often is essential to maintaining social relationships and personal
freedom.); Charles Fried, Privacy, 77 YALE L.J. 475, 482 (1968) (stating [p]rivacy is not simply an
absence of information about us in the minds of others; rather it is the control we have over information
about ourselves.); William A. Parent, Recent Work on the Concept ofPrivacy, 20 AM. PHIL. Q. 341, 346
(1983) (noting privacy is the condition of a person's not having undocumented personal information about
himself known by others.).
2 INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE TASK FORCE, PRIVACY AND THE NATIONAL
INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE: PRINCIPLES FOR PROVIDING AND USING PERSONAL
INFORMATION (1995), available in <http://www.iitf.nist.gov/ipc/privacy.htm> [hereinafter IITF
PRINCIPLES]. The IITF Principles define personal information as information identifiable to the
individual. Id. Thus, personal does not mean especially sensitive, private or embarrassing. See William
A. Parent, Privacy: A BriefSurvey of the Conceptual Landscape, 11 SANTA CLARA COMPUTER &
HIGH TECH. L.J. 21, 23 (1995) (explaining that many experts have used personal in the sense of
-'especially sensitive.). Rather, it defines a relationship between the information and a person, i.e., whether
the information is somehow identifiable to an individual. Jerry Kang, Information Privacy in Cyberspace
Transactions, 50 STAN. L. REV. 1193, 1207 (1998).

2 Chi.-Kent J. Intell. Prop. 1

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