Paying for Privacy: Increasing the privacy and security comfort of end users

The recent revelations about the u.s. ?national Security Agency?s monitoring of electronic communications have rightly raised concerns about privacy issues. With the increasingly rare exceptions (e.g., calculators), today?s consumer electronics products are delivery platforms for services ranging from communications to entertainment. These services are provided by commercial organizations that require compensation to operate, and two basic business models for compensation have evolved: advertising support versus subscription fees. While the option of paying for privacy to avoid advertising exists, consumers have embraced widely popular advertising-based services so a wholesale shift to pay for privacy is unlikely to occur. In fact, the targeting of advertising to fit reader and viewer interests benefits both marketers and consumers and has always been practiced in all media to the extent that information has been available on consumer interests.