Will Self Regulation Succeed?

Privacy problems have weighed down the internet for many years. In spite of the efforts to impose privacy laws, internet technology changes so rapidly that it quickly out-dates these legislations. It only takes a year or two after implementation before the privacy law is rendered “useless” by technology. There has to be a strategy that will always keep in pace with the present situation. Among other approaches, self regulation is the best solution to privacy problems.

Self regulation is the imposing on oneself some privacy related initiatives so as to avoid privacy invasion. It is restraining, even without the law, the use of collected personal information by companies or groups that gather such information. It is a deliberate action that follows a clear set of guidelines regarding how a certain company can protect privacy. This action could be joined in by website advertisers, ISPs, data brokers, social networking sites, apps providers, etc.


The U.S. started implementing self regulation programs in 1997. Since that time, this idea has been promoted by way of spreading information about it and encouraging websites to make it their obligation. However, past experiences showed that not one self-regulatory effort sustained success. Some were initiated but failed in one or more substantive ways. Others never got the opportunity to show what they had planned to offer before they disappeared. Though it is believed that self regulation can, in fact, be the answer to privacy problems, improvements in its implementation are needed. There is a strong view that consumers themselves have the greatest responsibility in defending their own privacy.

The majority of past self regulation programs, according to observation and evaluation, were poorly designed. Most of these did not saturate the market well, which means that many consumers did not really know they were there at all. There were websites that made profit their top priority and used self regulation only as a cover up.

There was one more thing that hampered the success of self regulation in the past. This was the lack of significant and independent involvement among privacy and consumer advocates in its development and oversight. The oversight of self regulation that is financed by industry could not be successful because industry would not want it to be successful. When privacy standards are profit-driven, they are bound to fail because money becomes more significant than privacy.

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