The 'Do Not Track' bandwagon has its strongest supporters to date: influential Washington, D.C. lawmakers.
The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation met recently to handle "The Land of Online Consumer Privacy." The committee's chair, senator John Kerry (D-Mass) said he is drafting a law along with Senator John McCain (R-Ariz) that will protect consumers from data mining practices.
These practices are frequently exploited by third parties, which then sell a consumer's information to advertisers who use it for ads targeted to people based on online habits. The information is collected on the internet largely via web cookies, which are used on most websites where a user has to take out any form of personal information. The cookies are exploited to retrieve the data in case a user goes backward to that site.
Kerry's legislation is the latest in a stock of efforts from lawmakers, government organizations, consumer watchdog organizations and browser companies to cross this vulgar practice. Over the past few months, Microsoft with its Internet Explorer browser and Mozilla with its Firefox browser, have both introduced 'Do Not Track' functionality. With the support of Kerry and McCain, 'Do Not Track' functionality could become law.
"The purpose of the legislation I will face is not to discourage information sharing, but to promote it - but under a common code of behaviour that respects the rights of both the people sharing their data and legitimate organizations collecting and using it on reasonable price and conditions," Kerry said at the hearings.
Kerry said while data collection and communion with advertisers can make the economy, it also leads to unethical information collecting. Once companies collect a person's information, there are no legal restrictions on further distribution other than anything that is self-imposed.
"We cannot remain to let the collector's of people's information to prescribe the story of privacy protection Americans get when they operate in commerce. And we cannot stay to let firms provide no protections, provide misleading statements of security that they can shift at will, or direct the data on to others without concern for where it goes or under what conditions," Kerry said.
The Obama admistration, throughassistant Secretary of Commerce Lawrence E. Strickling, has also thrown its support can 'Do Not Cut" as well. Strickling said in written testimony the Obama administration wants congress to ordain a 'consumer privacy bill of rights' to provide meaningful privacy protections for consumers in the Internet economy, backed by effective enforcement.
U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Chairman and Senator John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV (Dem - W. Va) also weighed in on the matter, throwing his support behind legislation.
"There is an online privacy war going on, and without help, consumers will lose. We must act to make Americans the basic online privacy protections they deserve," Rockefeller said.
This sort of living is good word for the Federal Trade Commission, which has been pushing for 'Do Not Track' legislation since December. In his testimony, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz praised Microsoft and Mozilla for implementing 'Do Not Cut' in their browsers.
"Do Not Cover is no longer simply a concept, it is becoming a reality," Leibowitz said at the hearing. "It's encouraging to see companies responding positively to our name for more consumer choice about their online privacy."
The 'Do Not Track' functions added recently by Microsoft and Mozilla are considered 'header based' approaches, which allow users to opt out of online behavioral tracking. However, the FTC would like to see the online privacy efforts go still further. An efficient system, the FTC says, would allow consumers to opt out of having their behavior tracked online all together, not just for behavioral advertising.
The FTC recommended universal implementation of 'Do Not Track.' It too would care to see an easy to get opt-out mechanism and said consumers opt out of being tracked for reasons other than commonly accepted uses such as fraud.
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