Web 1.0 Case Study Overview - Piracy Advocacy Groups versus Intel (1999)

On 20 January 1999 Intel, a leading manufacturer in the computer processor industry, announced that it was planning to include a unique Processor Serial Number (PSN) in its new generation Pentium III computer chips. This announcement caused a stir amongst privacy watchdog groups as they believed that providing a unique PSN would significantly damage consumer privacy. They claimed that the PSN could facilitate information gathering about Internet users on a large scale with web sites able to collect these unique identifying numbers from visitors and keep a record of pages viewed, purchases made and any other data submitted. The site could then sell this information with questions around whether electronic dossiers could be compiled and used by corporate or government information-gathers alike. As one of the privacy group leaders said “The PSN is the greatest threat to the privacy of the American consumer since the social security number” (Kornblum in Leizerov, 2000). Using their existing websites to generate awareness amongst local and international media, these internet savvy tech-lobbyists mounted pressure on Intel resulting in an announcement that Intel would now modify the PSN to allow users control over its activation by creating a software patch. However, the privacy groups were not satisfied and despite meeting with Intel officials and in January 1999, three groups; Electronic Privacy Information Centre (EPIC), Junkbusters Inc. and Privacy International (PI) joined together and declared a boycott on Intel until the PSN was completely disabled and subsequently mounted a massive online protest. A central, standalone website was created to headquarter their campaign and contained links to news, media reports, question and answers, links to more information, along with other campaign related information. It also contained several ways for supporters to take action, making use of new tools and technologies that were now available thanks to the Internet that had not existed before, such as the ability to download graphics and text, and a link to a downloadable copy of campaign flyers that the public was encouraged to print out and distribute. In addition, the public was urged to put a text line referring to Intel’s misuse of power in the signature bloc of their emails and to write to leading PC makers to let them know that their computers would not be bought if they had the PSN in them. In April 2000, 16 months after the start of the campaign, Intel declared that it would stop using PSN in its next generation of computer processors (Kannelos in Leizerov 2000)