Walter, I was speaking with my girlfriend earlier today and the demise of the venerable Radio Shack chain came into the discussion. I told her that the chain had filed for bankruptcy a little while ago, and a controversy had arisen as a result. I’m not certain if you ever shopped there, but if you did you remember that Radio Shack always asked for contact information when making a sale. It was allegedly for the purpose of sending out catalogs to customers, but along the way this information, along with mail order purchases, ended up becoming a very large database of customer contacts and their purchased items. From what I’ve read, Radio Shack always insisted that this information was closely guarded, never shared with outsiders. Now that the chain has entered bankruptcy, the trustees or executors or whatever you call them have decided to sell this information off. This of course has raised the hackles of customers, privacy advocates, and many others.
This is where I see an incredible conundrum, at least from a libertarian point of view, hence this email to you, the lifelong student of pure libertarian theory. As far as I can tell, there is a libertarian side to arguments both for and against this sale of information. On the customer side, those people freely provided that information, but under the express condition that it would be held in confidence and never shared with outsiders. Therefore, no one has a right to it except the people who provided it – and they want it kept hidden, or the people who stored and used it – and they’re no longer around to store it or use it. The original receiver is gone, so the information should revert to the provider.
On the company side, this information was freely provided under that condition of protection, however, that condition was offered by an original party (Radio Shack) that was now insolvent, and this information along with any other information could be considered intellectual property of Radio Shack, and as such could be and should be liquidated in order to provide the maximum amount available to settle with creditors and/or shareholders. There are so many ways of looking at this. Would this information be considered the property of the providers, loaned to the company in return for consideration? Is the information provided as a trade, with limited rights? Does any of that matter if the party responsible for protecting the information is no longer available to act on that protection? Does the responsibility for protection fall back on the information provider then? Or am I looking at this wrong and there is a very simple, libertarian way to look at it? I could go on, but I would really like to hear your take.
Thanks very much for your time, as always. C
Dear C:
Thanks for your kind words about me.
In my view, it is illicit to own information (Kinsella, N. Stephan. 2001. “Against Intellectual Property,” Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 15, No. 2, Winter, pp. 1-53). So, let’s forget about the people on that list owning information about themselves. Also, I don’t think bankruptcy law is compatible with libertarianism. If an entrepreneur is afraid of bankruptcy, let him start a limited liability corporation, so he can have at most only a certain amount of skin in the game. Also, let’s forget about computers. Too difficult for my old, feeble, senile brain to deal with. I’m lucky I can send and receive e mails, old codger that I am.
Let us suppose that Radio Shack has this information on pieces of paper. It owes $1 million to its creditors. They seize all of the property of Radio Shack, including these pieces of paper. The question in my mind boils down to, What may the creditors do with these pieces of paper? May they burn them? Yes. May they look at them? Yes, again. May they mail letters to the people whose names and addresses appear on these pieces of paper? Yes, again, since for the libertarian who sees the non-aggression principle (NAP) as the core of this philosophy, the issue in all these questions is, Does doing X constitute an uninvited border crossing, a violation of the NAP, a trespass on someone else’s private property. Mailing letters to people does not violate the NAP, so the creditors of Radio Shack may do so, and thereby violate no libertarian law. But what about rights of privacy? There is no such thing in my view, at least not for the libertarian. See a chapter on the Peeping Tom in my book, Defending II on this. (I am now known, war and wide – well, at least in my own mind — as Walter Moderate Block; will I soon be called Walter Peeping Block? Only the Shadow knows.) Also see this: Block, Walter E. 2013. “There Is No Right to Privacy.” July 13.
Now let us return to the people on the list who don’t want to receive any junk mail in general, and, certainly not from the creditors of Radio Shack. How may they legitimately protect themselves? Not by forbidding the new owners of these pieces of paper from looking at them. Not, either by forbidding the new owners of these pieces of paper from mailing letters to them. Rather, by arranging with their (private of course, in the free society) postal delivery service to ferret out and not deliver junk mail to them. See my piece, here, on spam: Block, Walter, Stephan Kinsella and Roy Whitehead. 2006. “The duty to defend advertising injuries caused by junk faxes: an analysis of privacy, spam, detection and blackmail.” Whittier Law Review, Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 925-949.
This is a very tough challenge to libertarian theory. I hope and trust I’ve done justice to your question.
4:29 pm on July 14, 2015
