Interesting website
All sorts of “manifestos” about entrepreneurial acitivities, business and culture. I particularly like an article I read today “The Seven Principles of Privacy”, which argues that laws (and adhering to their minimum requirements) offer poor privacy protection and that an ethical approach is better.
In a nutshell treat your users with the respect with which you’d want to be treated. Behave yourself, and articulate your stance in simple terms.
I give little regard to laws. I see them as an expression of what a particular society deems to be acceptable conduct at a particular point in time, nothing more. For instance, same-sex couples are able to get hitched these days (and rightly so) when in the past they’d have been charged with a crime. I operate according to my own sense of morality and I’ve not strayed too far yet 
So that article makes a lot of sense to me.
I’ll be writing my own privacy policy in accordance with that article.
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November 24th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
“and that an ethical approach is better.”
Ethical and profitable are rarely the same thing and that’s the problem. Much of today’s spam is totally unethical, but is done in an attempt to increase profits.
One can’t simply rely on good nature because not everyone cares about such things. Laws are there precisely as a reminder that there are those who happily choose unethical and immoral actions and need to be strictly guided against and punished for persuing such paths.
November 24th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
Thanks, but I know why we have laws!
I’ve no interest at all in pursuing a code of practise that has anything in common with the kind of attitude that thinks spam and such is OK.
5,000 words of baffling legalese is only needed to cover one’s ass if you plan on playing fast and loose with people’s information and need to make sure users have signed away any possible comeback if you get caught doing so.
I’ll take my chances I think, with ventures that I hope will enjoy a reasonable (rather than incredible) degree of success, if the latter requires me to be a scumbag.