Transportation and delivery costs that, while getting smaller in relation to wellhead prices, are rising, and inflation, higher interest rates, and costs of uncollectables add to the price.
Prices have not fallen even temporarily because long-term contracts common between pipelines and producers typically prevent downward adjustment of prices to meet demand fluctuations, and the economy (hence the consumer) cannot escape the costof sustaining capacity through up-and-down demand. This glut, however, may be a surplus of short-run deliverability rather than an increase in supply. goals, NGPA has also led to current large increases in gas prices, ironically at a time when producers complain of more gas than they can sell. The natural-gas price story began with the 1954 price controls that developed into a wasteful, inefficient, and unfair system of too-low gas prices that resulted in the 1978 Natural Gas Policy Act (NGPA). Rectifying natural-gas underpricing and distortions in production has benefited the overall economy, but transition costs are large, and problems and strains continue. It advocates towards an approach in which people are not only seen as consumers of privacy and security technologies, but where they can play a role as the producers of ideas and sources of inspiration for the development of usable PETs that meet their actual privacy needs and concerns. This chapter explores the way in which users’ involvement has been considered during the development process of PETs and argues that more democratic approaches of user involvement and data handling practices are needed. However, these technologies are often perceived as complicated and obtrusive by users who are not privacy aware or are not computer or technology savvy. Methods and tools for securing people’s online activities and protecting their privacy on the Internet, called Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs), are being designed and developed. This spreading of users’ information through different Websites can eventually lead to increased probabilities for identity theft, profiling and linkability attacks, as well as other harmful consequences. Worse, those who would freeze privacy protection in place would also freeze in place much of the Internet itself, precluding development of new business models that would compete with Google, allaying concerns about competition and benefiting consumers.įrequent contact with online businesses requires Internet users to distribute large amounts of personal information. Uncomfortable as this reality may be for those who fret about antitrust issues and indeed for Google itself, the simple reality is that sometimes it takes “big dogs” to make self-regulatory systems truly effective.Google’s approach is precisely the kind of innovation that would be discouraged by pre-emptive government regulation. Google risks alienating some advertisers and publishers with its bold empowerment of users, but was willing to take those risks because of its incentives as a consumer-facing company and able to do so because of its leadership in the marketplace. Google is sure to be attacked for crossing a “line in the sand” drawn by some privacy advocates between contextual and behavioral advertising, but those whose first priority is advancing consumer privacy should applaud Google for excluding sensitive categories and for putting the new Ad Preference Manager, with its persistent opt-out plug-in, at the core of the company’s new IBA program.It’s no accident that Google is now leading the pack of third party ad networks by developing innovative solutions that respect consumer privacy. Google’s new “Interest Based Advertising” (IBA) program represents the company’s first foray into what is generally called “Online Behavioral Advertising”: In order to deliver more relevant advertising, Google will begin tailoring ads delivered through AdSense on the Google Content Network and, based on a profile of each user’s interests created by tracking their browsing activity across sites that use AdSense - but not search queries or other user information.
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