Since the late ‘70s, privacy activists have been working to educate the general populace regarding the tremendous amount of personal information gathered by commercial enterprises. Most of the attention was focused on direct marketers and other advertisers, who became experts at mining public information sources and recording point-of-sale data (which could be tied to credit card and checking account numbers) for the purpose of linking demographic information to consumer behavior. Where fears for our privacy once revolved around notions of some governmental "Big Brother," we came to see that far greater potential for use and abuse of private information springs from our economic system rather than our political system.

Recently, however, our concerns have been refocused on the Internet phenomenon. As the ‘90s dawned, few people saw the Internet as a commercial concern. The only browsers were text browsers, and one had go to some lengths to acquire the knowledge to successfully navigate the command-line, Unix-based environment. Moreover, the majority of information available via the Internet was academic in nature and held few thrills for the average citizen. Then Mosaic, the first widely-accepted graphics-based browser, arrived. Entrepreneurs and opportunists began to take note and by the time the first version of Netscape Navigator found its way onto personal computers, the commercial Internet was launched, never to be deterred.

There were still a couple of conditions that had to be met before our concerns became fully realized. The first has been gradually met over the past few years, as the software for transacting business and acquiring information about consumers over the Internet has been developed and deployed.

Over the course of the last year, the second condition has been met. We have been waiting for the consumer computer age and essentially, it has arrived -- sooner than expected. There are now personal computers in over half of all U.S. homes due, in part, to the growing popularity of the Internet. The main reason, however, is the introduction of low-cost desktop computers, which now account for 61 percent of all computer sales. Half of these customers have never owned a computer before. Fifty-six percent of these sales were to households with an annual income of $35,000 or less, resulting in something of a democratization of computer use, and an explosion of growth in Internet commerce.

Next month, we will look at how specific privacy issues are being addressed.