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Today's Topics:
1. Re: Privacy policy of Ekiga (schoappied)
2. Re: Privacy policy of Ekiga (D Webb)
3. Re: Privacy policy of Ekiga (schoappied)
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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 11:39:30 +0100
From: schoappied <schoappied gmail com>
Subject: Re: [Ekiga-list] Privacy policy of Ekiga
To: Ekiga mailing list <ekiga-list gnome org>
Message-ID: <47E23EE2 9030901 gmail com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Stefan Monnier wrote:
>>>>> I hope you will be able to point me to the privacy statements of
>>>>> Ekiga or otherwise You will take this subject very seriously.
>>>>>
>>>> Are you talking about ekiga or ekiga.net?
>>>>
>>> I think both are really important, is it not?
>>>
>
> Not really: the Ekiga application is just that: an application.
> It happens to use the network, just like Firefox, but it doesn't
> (modulo bugs or nasty people adding backdoors) connect to any machine
> to which you haven't explicitly asked it to connect.
>
> I don't think a privacy statement is important here.
>
>
>> You seem to assume that Ekiga is an organization, in the way that Skype
>> is an organization. It is not at all the same thing: Skype is a
>> commercial organization with a proprietary product and service; Ekiga
>> is an open source application, and there is a community that supports
>> and uses it. To use myself as an example, the only information that
>> ekiga.net has access to are my name and email address. There need be
>> no privacy statement, since there is no collection of personal data,
>> such as Skype might require and use.
>>
>
> The fact that Ekiga.net is not commercial doesn't make much difference:
> it does keep a database of users with their email address and names, and
> (more importantly) it does keep track of which ones are connected and
> from where, so it know about IP addresses and may potentially keep a log
> of "when which user connected with which IP".
>
> And the police may order Damien to give out some of that info, or some
> dire financial need (or juicy offer) may push Damien to sell that info.
>
> So a privacy statement explaining what info is kept (e.g. is a log of IP
> addresses kept?), that to which it is intended (e.g. it's not intended
> to be distributed to any third party, except the name database which is
> freely searchable, IIUC), and the worst case guarantee (all the data may
> be stolen, subpoena'd, sold, ...).
>
>
> Stefan
>
> _______________________________________________
> ekiga-list mailing list
> ekiga-list gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/ekiga-list
>
>
D Webb wrote:
> I assume that everything I read, write, upload or download on the
> Internet
> and dates, times and IP addresses are being recorded by several
> governmental agencies at any given moment. Thus far, I have rarely been
> proven wrong. I assume everything I do on the Internet could just as well
> have been shouted at the top of my lungs in a football stadium.
>
> It is in this sense that I think privacy statements, while being a
> profitable
> marketing gesture for a business, offers no more privacy than no
> statement
> at all. Let us say you are going to tell someone over Ekiga about some
> terrible
> crime you will commit. Do you really think you will escape police
> intervention
> or a prison sentence because of a privacy statement? I guess you could
> try and file a lawsuit from a prison cell, but would it not be easier
> to accept
> my interpretation of VoIP as shouting in a football stadium?
>
> Finally, a lawyer could butt in and tell us all these complicated
> issues and
> scenarios and pitfalls, and the infinite variances in different
> countries. Again,
> would it not be easier to just assume you are shouting in a football
> stadium
> and just accept the Internet does not have much mercy for privacy?
>
> Dominic
Of course the governments and police can get at a given time (as
exception) access to data stored on the internet. But, at least in the
Netherlands, also the government and the police have to respect laws and
rules. So the comparison with information that is shouted in a stadium
is not right here. It's also not a good attitude of the citizens of a
country to just accept that everyone can violate your privacy. Citizens
should put effort in making good rules for privacy or to protect it.
Privacy is a human right of a democracy.
And there is more then police and government. The police and government
are not the first and also not the second reason to have a privacy
policy. The first reason is that you as a user, have the right to know
what is happening with your given or received data. On the basis of the
policy you can decide whether or not you are going to use that service.
So Ekiga as a service can at least give information how they handle the
information with or without given guarantees. Second it is also good to
know if a service will doing at least there best to take care about privacy.
The fact that other service store information for a long time, set
cookies, or even give or sell information to third parties
(advertisement companies for example) makes a privacy policy useful or
necessary for a service as Ekiga. I don't want a service that is
gathering information and give it to third parties and so I like to know
of Ekiga what there policy is in this case. And I think it is something
that a service like Ekiga should have, because it is important how a
service is dealing with your (private) information (I don't like to find
my chatsession with my girlfriend to find on Google or that others can
know who I'm calling at which times).
The argument that privacy statements or policies is only profitable
marketing is something which is not true. I can't see why it should
Ekiga costs money to have just written down there privacy policy. I
think too that a privacy policy is not the same as a guarantee, it would
be nice if it was, but inform your users about the privacy policy of the
service and doing the best to protect the privacy of the 'users' is in
itself a good thing.
Dirk
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 11:07:00 +0000
From: D Webb <dlw_insulin hotmail com>
Subject: Re: [Ekiga-list] Privacy policy of Ekiga
To: Ekiga mailing list <ekiga-list gnome org>
Message-ID: <BLU130-W31231DDC88A8347412741A85000 phx gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> rules. So the comparison with information that is shouted in a stadium
> is not right here. It's also not a good attitude of the citizens of a
> country to just accept that everyone can violate your privacy. Citizens
> should put effort in making good rules for privacy or to protect it.
> Privacy is a human right of a democracy.
Right, wrong, the law and self-preservation are 4 different things with
infinite permutations of interpretation. Please consider thinking of your
privacy much like your bicycle, you from the Netherlands. You will want
laws to punish bicycle thieves AND a strong lock. The law exists because
there are people who do not follow it. I expect privacy laws and the
corresponding violators to co-exist. I do not see privacy statements
helping much.
Dee
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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 12:42:28 +0100
From: schoappied <schoappied gmail com>
Subject: Re: [Ekiga-list] Privacy policy of Ekiga
To: Ekiga mailing list <ekiga-list gnome org>
Message-ID: <47E24DA4 4040605 gmail com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
D Webb wrote:
> > rules. So the comparison with information that is shouted in a stadium
> > is not right here. It's also not a good attitude of the citizens of a
> > country to just accept that everyone can violate your privacy. Citizens
> > should put effort in making good rules for privacy or to protect it.
> > Privacy is a human right of a democracy.
>
> Right, wrong, the law and self-preservation are 4 different things with
> infinite permutations of interpretation. Please consider thinking of your
> privacy much like your bicycle, you from the Netherlands. You will want
> laws to punish bicycle thieves AND a strong lock. The law exists because
> there are people who do not follow it. I expect privacy laws and the
> corresponding violators to co-exist. I do not see privacy statements
> helping much.
>
> Dee
>
I think you're right on this point, although Ekiga should, in my
opinion, do there best to protect my information against potential
violators....
But it seems that you not really understand what I was trying to say.
It's not only about protecting information against violators outside,
but as a user I want to know the policy of* Ekiga itself.* What are they
doing with my information. That's what I want to know before I will use
a service like Ekiga. And I think they should put there policy, like
many other comparable services, on there website.
Privacy for a internet service like Ekiga is an important issue. That's
why I was a little surprised by the reaction of developer Damien (with
respect), who said that he finds writing a privacy policy boring or
hasn't enough time for it. I think if you're offering a service like
this and like to have a lot of users, the first thing you should do is
doing your best to protect your users against violations of all kind and
give them information about how you deal with the privacy of your users.
That's at least the right your users have.
I like to help spreading the word about Ekiga, but I'd like to do that
with the knowledge that the service has a good and open privacy policy.
Kind regards,
Dirk
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End of ekiga-list Digest, Vol 20, Issue 38
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