To say that the American public is greatly concerned with privacy, confidentiality, accuracy, and availability of information is a massive understatement.

For example, Ann Reilly Dowd summarizes the current state of this concern in an article entitled "How to Protect Your Privacy" (August 1997). She reports on a Money Magazine telephone poll of 550 Americans that showed that about 75% of those surveyed were very concerned with threats to their privacy, 67% were now more worried about threats to their privacy than they were five years ago, 80% of the women surveyed were worried about threats to their privacy, and 65% of the men surveyed were worried about threats to their privacy.

Moreover, concerns about privacy or confidentiality of data were clearly focused on specific areas. Thus, 88% of those surveyed were concerned with loss of social security numbers and personal identifiers, 83% of those surveyed were concerned with disclosure of financial records, and 70% were concerned with disclosure of medical information. About two thirds of those surveyed were concerned with eavesdropping on cellular telephone calls, sales and rental of personalized marketing lists, and employer surveillance.

Some of the greatest fears found by the survey were directly tied to the Internet and things like the Internet. Thus, 69% of those surveyed were worried about Internet companies collecting information on their family's buying preferences, and 64% of those surveyed were worried about Internet companies tracking their visits to world wide web sites. This...