Thursday, July 9, 2009

Internet Privacy Push Persists

Despite self-regulatory guidelines announced last week by major marketing industry trade associations, advocacy efforts persist for stronger Internet privacy legislation. Jeff Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, said the trade groups' initiatives make passing legislation more challenging, but that there's momentum in the House for such laws. One indicator of their fate "will be how quickly Congress enacts legislation for Obama's financial regulatory agency," Chester said, since that debate will make clear the congressional appetite for ramping up consumer protections. He also thinks the potential agency would have a regulatory role in future Internet privacy laws. The silver bullet for Web privacy regulation could be the prospect of portraying them as crucial to consumers' financial well-being. An individual's bank account, loan ratings, and other financial data are among materials that can be viewed online, Chester said.

For its part, the American Civil Liberties Union anticipates increasing its Internet privacy advocacy in the coming months, spokesman Jay Stanley said. He said problems associated with behavioral advertising are worsening and his group expects to have more time on its hands in the Obama administration to handle that since concerns over warrantless wiretapping and other government overreaches have receded from the foreground they occupied during George W. Bush's term.

While the Federal Trade Commission praised the new industry guidelines the commission is "waiting to see how these principles play out," FTC attorney Peder Magee said. On the industry side, the principles are being positioned as rendering legislation unnecessary. Lee Peeler, executive vice president at the Better Business Bureau, which will help enforce the principles, pointed to Web site privacy policies as an example of industry regulating even in the absence of federal statutes. "Almost every Web site in the country has a privacy policy on it now," Peeler said. -- Sara Jerome