What's the difference between a relationship and a mugging? Apparently users of online content sources are hard pressed to understand the difference. The Annenberg Public Policy Center report entitled "Americans and Online Privacy: The System is Broken" (PDF) found that amongst 1,200 U.S. adults there are widespread misconceptions and fears about privacy and privacy policies for collected online information. Less than half of the respondents found privacy policies easy to understand and 85 percent of respondents would be willing to pay to keep their information exchanges confidential. In the meantime, the heavy-handed prosecutorial approach taken by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) towards illegal song downloads seems to be building relationships with the public about as effectively as a batallion of soldiers in Iraq. Full-page advertisements in major papers are aimed at parents, with the headline "Next time you or your kids 'share' music on the Internet, you may also want to download a list of attorneys." Like the valiant but daunted soldiers, the RIAA is coming in with the wrong ammo for the wrong targets. They will get their pound of flesh, do doubt - but as suggested by the looming boycott of major record labels, they may not have understood just how deeply that they will have destroyed their relationship with their core marketplace in the process. Copyright enforcement is necessary, and "bad apples" need to be addressed, but until the enforcement of intellectual property is a two-way process based on respect rather than distrust, little positive progress will be made on either the vendor or consumer side of the IP battle.