December 5, 2006 8:20AM 

# Open Business Models and Privacy 

By [Jim Harper](https://www.cato.org/people/jim-harper) 

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I’ve written [here](https://www.cato.org/2006/10/18/google-office-vs-government-request/) [before](https://www.cato.org/2006/10/30/google-et-al-and-government-surveillance/) about how Web 2.0 business models, particularly Google’s, are in conflict with current Supreme Court privacy cases denying people a Fourth Amendment interest in information they have entrusted to third parties.

Now comes [a very interesting Information Week report](http://www.informationweek.com/internet/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=193700604&subSection=) on last month’s Web 2.0 Summit:

> None other than Google – which has profited enormously from the data users submit to its services and from the data its users generate through use of its services – is thinking seriously about how to give users more control over their data. Though stopping short of a complete data emancipation proclamation at the Web 2.0 Summit, CEO Eric Schmidt said, “The more we can let people move their data around … the better off we’ll be.”

And the better off users’ privacy will be.

##### Related Tags 

[Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Technology and Privacy](https://www.cato.org/technology-privacy), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) 

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