New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has turned his head to the issue of email privacy. Spitzer’s office began an investigation of companies involved in “data mining” and sale of marketing lists and have now filed suit against Gratis Internet. Spitzer’s office is seeking penalties and injunctive relief under New York’s consumer fraud statutes.
It would be nice to see some aggressive action on the Canadian side of the border. Despite an announcement late last week of more research funding for privacy policy issues, I haven’t seen prosecution or penalties that will act as a deterrent to abuses. As Michael Geist has pointed out, an expensive and lengthy application to the federal court is needed in order to levy a penalty under Canada’s privacy laws. The Privacy Commissioner’s practice of keeping the identity of targets of complaints secret doesn’t help.
Maybe that is why N5R hasn’t been too concerned with the recent breech in their security of their email database. N5R is an internet marketing agency that has done campaigns for telecom carriers, car companies and packaged goods firms among others. They inappropriately used one of my email addresses from one client in order to run a campaign for another.
So what if Spitzer takes on these high profile prosecutions (Wall Street, insurance, environment), to shore up a future campaign for governor. Canada could use some of this kind of judicial activism.