For privacy advocates who have spent years agitating for far-reaching data collection legislation, the last few months have resembled an ongoing bad dream.
A Republican lives in the White House, Democrats in Congress are in disarray, and business groups are emboldened. Even the Federal Trade Commission, which once recommended more privacy laws, will be headed by a conservative by the end of this year.
But while public attention has focused on Washington, D.C., a quiet revolution has taken place in the marketplace. Spurred not by legislative fiat but by competitive pressures, companies have begun to offer anonymous services -- in part to lure customers who have poor credit or who are immigrants without any credit history.
On Tuesday, San Francisco startup Telespree said it will sell sub-$30 disposable cell phones later this year. The company says it believes the market for low-cost phones with prepaid service plans will be at least as large as today's market for disposable cameras.
Telespree spokeswoman Laura Borgstede says that anonymity "is just a side benefit" of the concept. She envisions wireless providers such as Sprint buying the snazzy red handsets and branding them with their own logos. "You could give one to your 5-year-old son, give another one to your parents, and keep an extra one in the car for emergencies," Borgstede said.
That's a remarkable change from the irksome obstacles customers once faced, back when cellular providers required hefty security deposits or intrusive credit checks in exchange for service.
Telespree isn't alone. AT&T offers prepaid wireless services, including digital features such as Caller ID, text messaging, and voicemail on Nokia and Motorola handsets. Customers can pay cash for the phones and prepaid service cards at AT&T retail stores.
"Self-help technologies are probably in the long run more effective at protecting privacy," said Jeffrey Rosen, an associate professor of law at George Washington University and the author of The Unwanted Gaze.
"The greatest threats to privacy come from consumer surveillance -- but the greatest promise of reconstructing it is coming from the consumer market," Rosen said. "It's a nice convergence of consumer and business needs."
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court said telephone companies could continue using information they record about customers, including phone-using habits, to market other services to them. But anonymous phone service prevents firms from linking names with calling profiles.
Probably one of the most frequently cited examples of privacy invasion is the credit card company that chooses to resell your personal information.
No less a figure than former President Clinton used the example of a miscreant credit card firm in a 1999 speech that called on Congress to approve more data regulations.
Said Clinton: "While some of your private financial information is protected under existing federal law, your bank or broker or insurance company could still share with affiliated firms information on what you buy with checks and credit cards -- or sell this information to the highest bidder."
In comments sent to the Clinton administration last year, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) complained of "widely publicized abuses involving the provision of bank customers' credit card information to telemarketing firms."
One answer might be a new American Express card sold in 7-Eleven stores that lets shoppers avoid such potential privacy invasions by remaining anonymous.
It comes in two largely identical flavors: The 7-Eleven Internet Shopping Card -- introduced last month -- and the 7-Eleven Gift Card. Both are from American Express. A customer who walks into a participating 7-Eleven store can hand over cash for an anonymous prepaid charge card with up to $1,000 stored on it, if he or she is willing to pay a 4 percent service fee.
"Prepaid business has always been really big for 7-Eleven," said 7-Eleven spokesman Dana Manley. "We've had a lot of success with prepaid long-distance phone cards, prepaid cellular, prepaid wireless phones. We have been selling prepaid for quite a while, so this was a natural extension to our line of prepaid services."
"A lot of people who buy prepaid services are folks without a credit history or who could not qualify," Manley said. "Maybe they're a new American and have not built up a credit history."
American Express introduced the original 7-Eleven Gift Card last year in a pilot program in Austin, Texas. The financial services company says both variants of its prepaid card can be used nearly everywhere American Express cards are accepted.
"I think it's good for people who may not have a credit card and therefore may not be able to shop online easily," said American Express spokeswoman Nancy Muller. "It's really essentially a substitute for cash here. We tell people to guard the account number the way they would with cash or any credit card."
Muller says that American Express has experimented with "a number of different" stored value cards, including an incentive funds card that served as a kind of corporate gift certificate.
For folks alarmed by privacy advocates' suggestions of profiling by their Internet provider, there's always anonymizer.com, one of the oldest and most-respected privacy businesses. In addition to providing Web anonymity, the company also sells dialup accounts -- payable in cash in advance.
When asked whether the paper-money option is aimed at people worried about privacy or ones without credit, Anonymizer.com president Lance Cottrell replies: "It's a little of both. Certainly there's nothing like good ol'American greenbacks for privacy."
"But also an important issue is that we have a large international user base," Cottrell says. "For many of these people, it's much easier to get their hands on American currency than to get a credit card or go through the hassle of getting a money order or check drawn on a U.S. bank."
It seems to be working. Cottrell says that thanks to 18,000 active paying users and 150,000 customers who use the slower, free service, Anonymizer.com is now "at break-even."
Convenience can also lend itself to anonymity.
Starting about a decade ago, U.S. airlines began to check travelers' identification before letting them board a flight. But to stave off long lines, U.S. Airways now offers electronic check-in services at some airports.
The automated kiosks allow travelers -- at least those not checking luggage -- to select their seat assignment and board the plane after inserting a frequent flyer card. No government-issued identification or credit card is necessary.
"What's so encouraging about this is that even the most respectable companies see nothing socially stigmatizing about offering these options," said Rosen, the Georgetown University professor. "It's extremely encouraging since it shows what an American value privacy is and how many people will (buy it)."
