While some attendees took the "build-the-privacy-protecting-technologies-and-it-will come" position, others lobbied for legislative action, or a combination of privacy-enhancing technologies and law, arguing that large corporations would have little motivation to deploy the technologies otherwise.
"I don't think vendors are going to build in privacy protections if there is no incentive for profit," said Avi Rubin, principal researcher at AT&T Labs, who added that he would like to see a mix of technology and legislation that guards privacy.
However, relying too much on legislation to ensure privacy is also a sticky subject, according to Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
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