Privacy, Security, and Digital Rights Management

The Internet age presents companies and governments with an increasing opportunity and obligation to think carefully about they manage information. Increasingly, as information involving commerce, banking, and lifestyle choices are online, policies regarding privacy, security, and the nature of digital rights management regimes will create possibilities and limitations for the use of the Internet. In terms of privacy and security, questions whether identity information will remain confidential will continue to hamper the willingness to pursue goods online. Similarly, both fraud and security breaches will impose considerable damage to efforts to develop ecommerce offerings. Finally, the questions regarding digital rights management continue to chill the willingness of the entertainment industries to put their content online. At the same time, instituting new legal requirements regarding the copying of entertainment presented in digital form threatens to deprive users of their fair use rights and possibly limit the scope of technological innovations.