Today’s item is a somewhat contrarian musing about online privacy.

The (Still) Coming Privacy Boom
A year ago, at a cover meeting at BusinessWeek, I proposed a big story: The Privacy Pay-off. The idea was that tracking and other data surveillance would spark a reaction: People would fear for their privacy. And this would create all sorts of business opportunities, the privacy pay-off.
It sounded like a plausible idea to the editors. So I went off hunting for companies cashing in on this expanding new market. I figured that certain advertisers would seek competitive advantage by offering privacy guarantees. I hoped that at least a couple would transform their privacy statements, changing them from unreadable legalese into a clear and compelling promise. Someone, somewhere had to be turning privacy statements into marketing tools.

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