[8024] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Zero Knowledge, after poor software sales, tries new gambit
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Declan McCullagh)
Wed Nov 1 12:38:07 2000
Message-Id: <4.3.0.20001101114204.01991030@mail.well.com>
Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2000 11:43:20 -0500
To: cryptography@c2.net
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
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Also see ZKS press release:
http://www.zeroknowledge.com/media/pressrel.asp?rel=10312000
********
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,39895,00.html
Privacy Firm Tries New Gambit
by Declan McCullagh (declan@wired.com)
2:00 a.m. Nov. 1, 2000 PST
WASHINGTON -- Zero Knowledge Systems seems to have finally realized a
harsh truth: Internet users don't like to pay extra to protect their
privacy.
The Montreal-based firm won acclaim for its sophisticated
identity-cloaking techniques, but very few people appear to have paid
the $49.95 a year to shield their online activities from prying eyes.
That's not exactly a heartening prospect for a company with 250
employees to pay and $37 million in venture capital funds to justify
-- especially when already high-strung investors have become nervous
about Internet companies that have never made a profit.
Zero Knowledge's solution: A kind of privacy consulting service it
announced on Tuesday. Through it, the company hopes to capitalize on
the growing privacy concerns of both consumers and businesses -- and,
most importantly, finally enjoy some revenues.
"This is a new focus for Zero Knowledge: helping businesses build in
privacy technologies in how they deal with customer data flow," Austin
Hill, co-founder and chief executive, said in a telephone interview.
"As customer expectations have increased with privacy, and how
governments have started to regulate some privacy standards ... all of
a sudden, companies are having to think, 'Hold on, how do I build in
privacy?'" Hill said.
Hill and his staff of technologists -- including veterans like
cryptologists Stefan Brands and Ian Goldberg -- aren't alone in eyeing
the privacy-consulting business as a lucrative one.
Many of the established consulting businesses such as
PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst and Young offer privacy services. IBM
launched such a business in 1998, and an Andersen Consulting
representative says that privacy awareness is "a component of almost
anything we do."
[...]
