Orwellian TSA Puts CNN Reporter on “Watchlist” House Committee Asks Professor to Censor Facebook Remarks - Digits. FTC Backs System Allowing People to Avoid Online Tracking. What was the story of the first FTC online privacy chat? 17 questions and answers. FTC calls for "Do Not Track" list, new policies to protect online privacy. The Federal Trade Commission is proposing new policies around online privacy, including the creation of a "Do Not Track" mechanism as a means of easing the burden on consumers trying to keep tabs on who's keeping tabs on them.
The goal of the proposal, which is open to public comment until January 31, is "to balance the privacy interests of consumers with innovation that relies on consumer information to develop beneficial new products and services. " Facebook is one example of a company that has been innovating to channel the valuable data it has about its members into extended features but has also come under fire for crossing extremely fine lines when it comes to privacy.
And so, the commission is proposing some policies that would empower consumers to make educated decisions. Company privacy policies, for example, are "long, legalistic disclosures that consumers usually don’t read and don’t understand if they do. " “Do Not Track” – Update « Future of Privacy Forum. Some Background Notes on Do Not Track – in Advance of the Future of Privacy Panel and the Energy and Commerce Hearing Today’s Wall Street Journal article by Julia Angwin focuses on the upcoming “Do Not Track” events taking place this week, including the FPF program on Wednesday, and provides some background on recent developments. To further brief those of you attending in person or by phone, we thought it would be useful to provide an overview that captures the incredible flurry of advances in this area. Although there are improvements that are still critically needed, there has been tremendous progress in this area and a host of innovations are just beginning to emerge.
We hope the attention from the FTC, the Hill, the media, and the advocacy community will encourage the next steps needed to advance meaningful consumer controls and will support responsible advertising data uses. Industry Efforts Advocacy Efforts Progress Policymakers FPF Do Not Track Resource Page. FTC: Online Privacy Needs New Approach - Security - News & Reviews. Vladeck Previews Long-Awaited FTC Report. David Vladeck, Director of the FTC’s Division of Consumer Protection, this morning previewed the long-awaited FTC report that sums up months of discussion regarding the future of privacy regulation in the United States and examines the viability of a Do Not Track mechanism. Vladeck indicated at the Consumer Watchdog Policy Conference that the existing privacy framework in the U.S. is not keeping pace with new technologies. In addition, he stated that the pace of industry self-regulation, while constructive, has been too slow.
According to Vladeck, the report will address several major themes, including the following: There is a need to reduce the burden on consumers to allow them to control their information more effectively. Vladeck provided several examples of ways to reduce this burden: Privacy by Design, which entails building privacy protections into products and services at the outset and practicing good data hygiene from the start. FTC online privacy report endorses ?Do-Not-Track? mechanism for Web browsers. The Federal Trade Commission released an online privacy report today that will reshape how companies, consumers and businesses interact on the Internet.
The agency will take questions from reporters at 1 PM EST and from the public on Twitter in its first Twitter chat at 3 PM EST. The recommendation that “companies should adopt a ‘privacy by design’ approach by building privacy protections into their everyday business practices” is a key direction to every startup or Global 1000 corporation that comes under the FTC’s purview as the nation’s top consumer protection regulator. “Technological and business ingenuity have spawned a whole new online culture and vocabulary – email, IMs, apps and blogs – that consumers have come to expect and enjoy. The FTC wants to help ensure that the growing, changing, thriving information marketplace is built on a framework that promotes privacy, transparency, business innovation and consumer choice. FTC Chairman Privacy Report Remarks. Ftc-staff-issues-privacy-report-111129184. Offers Framework for Consumers, Businesses, and Policymakers Endorses "Do Not Track" to Facilitate Consumer Choice About Online Tracking WASHINGTON, Dec. 1, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Federal Trade Commission, the nation's chief privacy policy and enforcement agency for 40 years, issued a preliminary staff report today that proposes a framework to balance the privacy interests of consumers with innovation that relies on consumer information to develop beneficial new products and services.
The proposed report also suggests implementation of a "Do Not Track" mechanism – likely a persistent setting on consumers' browsers – so consumers can choose whether to allow the collection of data regarding their online searching and browsing activities. "Technological and business ingenuity have spawned a whole new online culture and vocabulary – email, IMs, apps and blogs – that consumers have come to expect and enjoy. SOURCE Federal Trade Commission RELATED LINKS.