Facebook’s fumbled effort at revving up an advertising engine is the subject of Randall Rothenberg’s op ed in the Wall St Journal today. While many people thought Facebook’s Beacon was yet another worrying sign that internet companies were threatening consumer privacy with their pursuit of revenue from targeted advertising, Rothenberg argues that Facebook’s about-face demonstrates the ability of the internet to self-regulate itself. The web facilitated a consumer rebellion that forced Facebook to give its users more control over their privacy and perhaps persuaded Ask.com to introduce its Eraser feature to allow people to scrub their personal histories. I don’t think Rothenberg’s comments will be the last word on this issue.

Like any community the internet needs laws to prevent people and businesses from imposing harm on each other and to protect property (including personal data and privacy). As the web becomes a larger and larger portion of commerce and communication it is inevitable that society will demand some degree of laws and regulations. It isn’t pragmatic to believe that society will permit anarchy and self-regulation. Isn’t it better to starting thinking about sensible rules now rather than having the usual knee-jerk regulations in the wake of the public clamor over clamping down on the seedy and dangerous side of the web?