Dutch cowboys refers to an interesting article on data keeping. The article highlights that besides the privacy concerns and cultural effects there actually should be enough commercial motivation for the development of an ICT equivalent of the swiss banking secret. John Battelle coins it Data Switzerland. Sort of suggesting the advantages where multi-nationals are known for:
” The concept is simple: why can’t companies that hold massive amounts of our personally identifying information – companies like Yahoo, AOL, Google, Verizon, etc – simply warehouse that information in a country that has consumer-friendly data privacy laws?
The multi-national Yahoo did hand over privacy information even when it was in a consumer privacy friendly area with its data. That didn’t make a difference, so how is this different? Other ideas mentioned are Havenco or some P2P equivalent. Developing story I guess.
In related news, the swiss bank (privacy) secret wasn’t that save either.
