This Sort of Talk Is Not Helpful

Here's a blog entry that sets up a phony RFID race between continents, makes a bogus charge about the industry's own efforts to make the technology people-friendly, and then on that basis declares Europe the winner. Voila!

In fact, I'm nominating this report for poster boy status for bad reporting. It represents everything most people find frightening about bloggers out of their collars and free to run about doing their business all over the yard tetherless from even the basic requirement to state a fact, give a supporting quote, or do anything more than their do-do with reckless abandon.

Europe already has an edge against U.S. in terms of well defined privacy policies whereas in U.S. the implementation of RFID has been left out to the industry which may not care about these issues as it may hamper their interests. It is still facing roadblocks regarding data privacy and specific usage and this may cause problems in its full acceptance. Certainly Europe seems to be on the right track and it seems that on the RFID front Europe would emerge as a clear winner.

Hey Alice, other than you in Wonderland, says who? Two, RFID isn't something a company or a country wins or loses. It's something you do or don't do, take it or leave it. As for the lead in privacy studies, you want to make this leap on the basis of Europe's first and only pan-European look-see? This the same Europe we're talking about that took years to vote for a common currency and still doesn't have 100% adoption?