Date: Mon, 02 May 2005 16:59:18 -0400 To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org> From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com> Subject: [WSFA] Re: Re" Phone Numbers Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org> At 01:38 PM 5/2/05 -0500, samlubell at verizon.net wrote: >>From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com> >>Again I ask: what is the benefit to WSFA of publishing this particular >>information? > >There's no benefit (other than faithfulness to the print edition) so if anyone does not want their address or phone number we'll cheerfully remove it. I understand that...Kieth said as much in his announcement. I'm objecting to the "opt-out" style of procedure. "Opt-in" would make more sense, all things considered. I.e., if you want your info included, you can say so, otherwise it won't be. This covers those ex-WSFA members who's data is still valid, as well as current members who may not have time to search through every Journal from the last 30 years one at a time to see if their personal data is being handed out to the world. Also, since the data is already up, the longer it stays up the more chances that it will end up in various net search engines, where it may or may not be removable...or even locatable (try to get it out of all the SPAMmer's databases for instance). It should be removed ASAP under the "better safe than sorry" rule in order to protect WSFA if nothing else...though I'd have hoped that those in authority in the organization would take that path which protects members regardless of legal threats. Every organization I work with these days is being very careful to spell out their privacy policy, and to safeguard "personally identifiable information" against access by anyone other than those the owner of that information has specifically agreed that it be shared with (even within the organizations). Your attitude is years out of date, and completely contrary to current attitudes, and perhaps not compliant with current laws (but again, I'll leave that to the legal minds who know more about that). Have you missed the recent hullabaloo over disclosure of personal data at Lexus-Nexus? I believe Congress is having hearings about it soon. We should not be ignoring this stuff... As someone who was around in the days before the net, in WSFA, and who provided the data with the understanding that it was for internal use in WSFA *only*, I would be *REALLY* pissed off to find that WSFA has now decided to hand it out to the world at large without so much as asking permission. That's an abuse of trust. My data has been used in this way, but luckily for me personally, it's out of date and so not a major danger to me. This may not be true for everyone though, and that's why I'm concerned. If the web version of the Journals was restricted to access only by WSFA members, that concern would be different...in that case we'd still be handling it under the terms it was acquired under. By opening these documents to the entire planet (and any others) WSFA has unilaterally changed the terms of the agreement, and that's just wrong. >But going through our entire on-line journal backlog of over 30 years to remove the phone numbers and remainder of addresses (remember part is already blocked out) on the chance that someone might object seems like a tremendous amount of effort for very little gain. How hard it is to do the right thing should never be a factor, but lucky for us it's not much effort at all. If you like, I'll do it. My VMS system has very good search features as well as file comparison utilities and scripting capabilities, and I can write whatever software would be required to handle this task there. I can run all the files to remove the phone numbers, addresses and e-mail addresses, then run difference listings to show what was changed between the input and output versions, and hand the whole thing back to Keith. >I think the policy we already have, which is similar to that used by Google, is sensible. If someone wants their address or number removed we will. I disagree. Google is only passing out information which was already publicly available...WSFA is not, so the situations are not comparable. I see it as extremely unfriendly to personal privacy of current and past members as well as a reckless action endangering WSFA's reputation (whatever that might be ;-) and financial resources. It may well be actionable in court as well, but I don't know for sure about that. >Now if Keith says he has a UNIX command that will go through and replace anything that looks like a phone number with (xxx) xxx-xxx that won't erase similarly big numbers in treasurer reports and the like, that would be a different story. UNIX isn't the only real OS on the planet, but it certainly has the power to do what I described above too. Might even be easier on UNIX, but I don't know UNIX as well as I do VMS. I know I can do it on VMS. -- Mike B. -- When in doubt, think.