On Friday, December 6, 2002, at 05:49 PM, Adam Stenseth wrote:
The principal is clear. If Alice knows something about Bob, and has not made contractual arrangements with Bob to restrict her, she may of course sell that information as she wishes.On Fri, 6 Dec 2002, Tim May wrote:Just for my own edification, does this apply to landline serviceIf Bob wants to have a cellphone number that is not sold to others, he should make arrangements with the cellphone company.
as well(or other government-sanctioned monopolies)? For example, are your
calling habits and landline number "assets" of your phone company? Many
of them seem to think so.
This follows from the noncoercion principal, formally.
If Bob doesn't wish Alice to obtain, remember, sell, or otherwise transfer what she has learned, it is up to him to arrange in advance for Alice not to do these things. This may involve a contract, or it may involve technology. (For example, using throwaway cellphones.)
Of course, this isn'y [generally] as applicable with wirelessI look to ways of bypassing so-called monopolies, not to using state power to ameliorate the effects of state-granted monopolies. Thinking the same state which granted the monopoly is the place to go for a fix is silly.
service since [at the moment, in most places] you can shop around for
service. But when a local monopoly telco says that your data is their
asset and the prospect of having that data sold is a condition of doing
business with them, from a libertarian perspective, is regulation of what
they can do with that data acceptable?
--Tim May
(.sig for Everything list background)
Corralitos, CA. Born in 1951. Retired from Intel in 1986.
Current main interest: category and topos theory, math, quantum reality, cosmology.
Background: physics, Intel, crypto, Cypherpunks
