One of Ours

Following 9/11, commercial airlines were asked to turn over passenger data they had collected to government agencies. These Passenger Name Records (PNRs) can include everything from a passenger's home address to their meal preferences and credit card numbers. In this particular case, Northwest Airlines turned over PNRs of many of its customers to NASA as part of an effort to study ways to increase airline security. A group of Northwest customers sued the company, pointing out that sharing their personal information with NASA is a direct violation of the privacy policy on Northwest's website. U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson disagreed, dismissing the case on June 6. Part of the rationale was that

. . . the customer's "personally identifiable information" -- the stuff that the airline agreed to protect -- did not belong to the customer, because the customer "voluntarily provided some information that was included" in the information given to the government, and that when Northwest "compiled and combined" this information with other data it "became Northwest's property." The court concluded "Northwest cannot wrongfully take its own property." This analysis is not limited to airlines. Any company or entity is now free to say anything in order to induce you to part with your personal information (don't worry, it's secure, or we won't sell it), because once you give it up, it "belongs" to them.

Needless to say, this case (PDF) has far-reaching implications for privacy policies, both online and on paper. Further, Judge Magnuson decided that online privacy policies don't constitute a contract between the company and the customer:

The final part of the district judge's opinion threatens to derail a long established body of law regarding the enforceability of language on websites. All companies have them -- you know, the burdensome and oppressive terms on a website that nobody reads (or is capable of reading) that limits the company's liability, or contains grandiose claims of superiority of their vaporware. In this case, the court held that Northwest was not bound by contract to do what it said it would do because there was no evidence that the consumers "actually read the privacy policy."

Essentially, what this means is that all those long-winded fine print agreements you have agreed to may not protect your personal information at all. Without judges who will step up to defend the privacy rights of consumers, it won't matter even if everyone starts reading the fine print thoroughly. By dismissing this case, Judge Magnuson has established that the personal information of online customers is not protected by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act or deceptive trade practices laws. Nor does sharing customers' personal information amount to an invasion of privacy or a breach of contract. With E-Commerce growth showing no signs of ebbing, the question of how confidential customer information is handled online is going to become increasingly urgent. Without any privacy protection at all, you are at the mercy of the company you are doing business with to honor the agreement. If they do not, then according to Judge Magnuson, you have no legal recourse at all.

Another hop across the Pacific, and I'm back in Japan again. Arriving at Narita, I unconsciously opened myself up to all the little changes that would greet me as I switched modes. Immediately I was impressed with how well-mannered all the Japanese around me were -- around the baggage carousel there's a "no cart" zone, and everyone was politely waiting for their luggage with their carts outside the zone. Several of the girls I saw waiting for their luggage sported "yaeba" (YAH-eh-bah), the famous cute crooked eye teeth that Japanese females often have, since Japanese very rarely get braces on teeth here. To combat the sweltering heat and humidity of the air around me, I went to buy a drink. While there were many choices familiar to anyone from the States -- Coke, Pepsi, even Mello-Yellow, which is being sold in "retro" bottles here this summer -- more than half the drinks available were varieties of bottled Chinese oolong or green tea.

As usual, I lost a day in my return trip to Japan, leaving on Monday afternoon from California and arriving on Tuesday night. It's only fair since I get a day free when I go the other way, leaving Japan at 2 p.m. and arriving in America at 8 a.m. on the same day, in effect arriving before I'd even left. Jumping from one side of the planet to the other means dealing with jet lag, which is never fun. Jet lag is really bad going from Japan to the U.S., since you have to stay awake a whole day before it's time to sleep, however going the other way isn't so bad: you just wake up too early the next day, and start to get dull around the edges in the afternoon.

Japan's cold northern region is home to enka, the blues-like "country music" of Japan that has a very unique sound and is enjoyed by truck drivers and everyone over 50 years of age here. Filled with themes of one's wife running away to marry another man, of images of the cold Tsugaru Straits between Honshu and Hokkaido, and of sake-drenched loneliness, it plucks at the heart in ways few other kinds of music can. Sung by both men and women, enka songs capture the sweet pain that we all feel in life. Enka, which probably originated in Korea, often employs tremolo vocals, singing while changing the pitch of your voice (not totally unlike yodeling) to express the emotion of the singer. Because enka songs are the last thing Japanese would expect a gaijin to be able to sing, I made it a point to learn many songs when I came to Japan, great fun while singing karaoke. Here are some samples of enka if you'd like to hear what it sounds like:

http://www.quixium.com/enka/ayako_fuji.mp3

http://ar.geocities.com/badfish19u/bokyosakaba.mp3