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Doug Krizner: Privacy is a rare commodity these days. Just about everything we do can be monitored — talking on the phone, shopping, even walking down the street.

Today, we’ll get a better idea of just how much privacy there is in the U.S. and in countries around the world. The Electronic Privacy Information Center is releasing its progress report on privacy this morning. Jeremy Hobson reports.

Jeremy Hobson: The report’s chief editor gives the highest marks for privacy to Canada and Germany. Some of the lowest marks, Mark Rotenberg says, go to China.

Mark Rotenberg: You have this dangerous mix of a powerful surveillance capability and few legal constraints.

Rotenberg says 9/11 created a similarly dangerous mix in the U.S. He says among the biggest privacy concerns here are the Patriot Act and the proposed merger of Google and DoubleClick.

Martin Abrams runs the business-oriented Center for Information Policy Leadership.
He says market forces should ease some concerns about privacy in the private sector.

Martin Abrams: Organizations are terribly afraid of reputational risk. So organizations are restrained by being seen as an organization that is not a good custodian of information.

Abrams says the U.S. is still at an early point in the Information Age, and has time to develop appropriate privacy guidelines for both business and government.

In Washington, I’m Jeremy Hobson for Marketplace.