June 24, 2003
Are camera phones ready for a close-up?
CNN reports on the wonder and misuse of camera phones and warns investors and cellular companies to "gird themselves for an impending battle with consumers, courts, and possibly even Congress over questions of privacy and the proper and improper uses of these phones".
With a predicted 1.9 million camera phones sold in America this year (other reports predict as many as 6 million units sold) use of camera phones in the US is not yet widespread enough for these issues to reach legislators' desks as they have in Italy, Australia, Switzerland or Saudia Arabia, but companies should begin preparing for the negative PR backlash the sites and stories will generate.
And excellent Mike Masnick in Techdirt Wireless gets worried when governments come out with new laws to specifically deal with a certain type of technology.
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