Christopher Hoofnagle

Christopher Hoofnagle Criticizes Ruling against LifeLock’s Fraud Alert Service

Wired, May 27, 2009 by Kim Zetter
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/lifelock/

Chris Hoofnagle, director of information privacy programs for the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, says the ruling is a disappointment. “The idea that we could some day see a market where we pay $10 a month to a company to opt us out of junk mail, to monitor our credit, to do all sorts of privacy-enhancing steps that we don’t have time to take … for that market to emerge, LifeLock’s business model and similar ones have to be legal,” Hoofnagle says.

Christopher Hoofnagle Warns of Internet Privacy Risks

Internetnews.com, May 15, 2009 by David Needle
http://www.internetnews.com/webcontent/article.php/3820531/Consumers+Left+in+the+Dark+on+Net+Privacy.htm

“Consent is a trap,” said Chris Hoofnagle, Director of Information Privacy Programs at the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology. “It’s more than notices and opt-in and opt-out,” he said, adding that details like how a consumer’s information might be used isn’t always made clear, nor how long it might be kept. “Do these things protect consumers? I’m not so sure,” he said. “It’s got to the point that the medium itself is poisoned and consumers feel unsure about being tracked online.”

Christopher Hoofnagle Supports Disclosure of Bonus Recipients

The New York Times, March 18, 2009 by Louise Story
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/business/19cuomo.html?pagewanted=print

Courts generally consider three factors in privacy cases: the delicacy of the data, its importance to public information and the harm that could come from releasing it, said Chris Hoofnagle, director of information privacy programs at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology. “Courts almost never prohibit the government from getting data. The question is, can they publicly disclose it?” Mr. Hoofnagle said. “The taxpayer funding weighs in favor of disclosure, because of the public interest.”

Christopher Hoofnagle Applauds FCC’s Move to Enforce Privacy Rules

Wired Epicenter, February 25, 2009 by Ryan Singel
http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/02/fcc-threatens-t.html

Longtime phone privacy advocate Chris Hoofnagle … thinks the FCC is laying the groundwork for actually doing something about rogue data selling and pre-texting. “The agency will start its enforcement actions by ensuring that all carriers are filing a security plan, and then will move on to evaluating the substance of the security plans,” Hoofnagle said.

Christopher Hoofnagle Describes Privacy Risks of Mined Public Data

FoxNews.com, February 20, 2009 by Joshua Rhett Miller
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,497285,00.html

“This is the modern problem of public records. They are public, but they exist in practical obscurity. It’s much like how music companies didn’t foresee that consumers would rip CDs. It was thought that their sheer size would make ripping CDs impractical. Something similar happened with public records.”

Christopher Hoofnagle Says Disclosure Law a Two-Edged Sword in Prop 8 Battle

The New York Times, February 7, 2009 by Brad Stone
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/business/08stream.html?pagewanted=print

“These are very small donations given by individuals, and now they are subject to harassment that ultimately makes them less able to engage in democratic decision making,” said Chris Jay Hoofnagle, senior fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University of California.”

Law School Scholars Propose New Ideas for the Obama Administration

San Francisco Chronicle, January 25, 2009 by Chris Jay Hoofnagle, Christopher Kutz, Jacob S. Hacker, Larry Karp, Jinhua Zhao
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/25/INT315F820.DTL&type=printable

-Chris Hoofnagle Recommends Public Reporting of Identity Thefts
Despite its incidence and severity, consumers have few tools to avoid identity theft. A light touch regulatory approach could spark a revolution in the prevention of fraud if banks and other credit-granting institutions were required to publicly report the number of identity theft incidents, the forms of identity theft and the amount of loss suffered or avoided.

-Chris Kutz Wants Executives to be Liable for Company Losses
So let’s require firms that want to pay in stock options to include a liability component as well, so that executives share both in the upside and downside risks. Liability would force managers to account for the risks they take with other people’s money.

-Jacob Hacker Prescribes Health Care Reforms
In acting now on health care, we’ll be keeping Americans healthy, reducing the financial risks of health care, and encouraging good health-industry jobs. We’ll also be tackling the leading long-term threat to the federal budget: runaway health costs.