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BREAKING NEWS & VIEWS

FTC Takes On Privacy as Industry Struggles to Respond
Monday, December 7, 2009
Steve Smith

The Federal Trade Commission today opens a series of roundtables on the increasingly contentious topic of consumer privacy in a digital age. As members of the industry, privacy advocates, and everyone’s lawyers make their way to Washington D.C. to add their voices to the proceedings, the online publishing and advertising industries continue to promise but not quite deliver the self-regulatory controls the FTC demanded of them almost a year ago. When the FTC issued its first set of findings about the state of behavioral targeting earlier this year, the group offered guidelines it hoped the industry would follow in policing itself. A group of advertising associations, led by the Interactive Advertising Bureau claimed last summer it would create a set of policies, a consumer education campaign and clear privacy labels for ads and Web sites. As the FTC convenes its meeting today, the IAB launches an ad campaign regarding online privacy and a Web site for consumers dubbed “Privacy Matters.”

At the same time The Center for Democracy and Technology launched a very different consumer-facing site, “Take Back Your Privacy” which invites people to write their representative about the issue. The site also offers a tool for reporting violations of privacy. A year after the FTC first weighed in on the issue, the Internet players involved do not seem to have gotten an inch closer to a credible self-policing mechanism, let alone consensus on what needs to be done to protect consumers.

In advance of the roundtable, several of the panel participants from consumer advocacy groups issued advance statements that suggest they will be calling for more direct regulation of the industry. “It’s time to recognize privacy as a fundamental human right and create a public policy framework that requires that right to be respected,” say Susan Grant, Director of Consumer Protection at Consumer Federation of America. “Rather than stifling innovation, this will spur innovative ways to make the marketplace work better for consumers and businesses.” Pam Dixon of the World Privacy Forum claims that attempts at self-regulation “have been utterly ineffective to protect consumers. The sale of personal information is a routine business model for many in corporate America… .”

For their part, the components of the interactive advertising world continue to press the side of increased consumer education about the ways data are collected on sites and making more visible opt out tools through groups like the Network Advertising Initiative. Nevertheless, it will be hard for the industry to cite its efforts at self-regulation when all it has to show is a new public service ad campaign and a Web site. There had been plans for wide adoption of privacy principles among advertisers and publishers as well as large labeling at sites and on ads that led to opt-out and educational materials. Those pieces of this self-policing project are still being tested we are told.

But is the IAB effort too little too late? There is growing interest among legislators on a state and federal level to enact laws governing online data collection. The new FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz, who will open today’s conference, had a long history of pressing for greater privacy control before President Obama appointed him Chair earlier this year, so many in the industry expect even greater pressure or eventual regulation to come from the agency. A live Webcast of the event will be available at the FTC site.

UPDATE: The FTC hearing is available in a video stream.

If you have breaking news to share please contact Steve Smith at ssmith@accessintel.com

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COMMENTS

This isn't purely a privacy issue. It's more nearly about reduced effectiveness of the digital distribution methods. I get so many e-mails these days, about "third-cousin" events and products, that I don't have enough time during normal work hours to sift out the smaller and smaller group of "good hits". Spam never originates in the computer of the sender, and can only be judged by the receiver. That FCC Rule by which one could get out of a mailing list is ignored all to frequently. We're ALL going to drown in this swamp!

Posted by Gene Pitts on Tuesday, December 8, 2009 @ 06:12 AM

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