The Federal Trade Commission has greatly increased its efforts to protect consumer privacy with a new privacy agenda it released today. "Many consumers are troubled by the way data is captured and used," Timothy J. Muris, the chairman of the FTC said at the DMA’s annual conference in Chicago. "And there are real consequences if the personal information is misused. Each item in our privacy agenda seeks to remedy real harm to consumers." As part of the new agenda, the agency has increased resources committed to protecting consumer privacy by 50%. It has created a privacy task force and added new resources and enforcement for the effort.
A recommendation will be made to propose an amendment to the Telemarketing Sales Rule to develop a national do not call list to be made available to consumers nationwide through an 800 number. An electronic database would be available to qualified marketers for specific uses. Muris asked for input from the DM community during the rulemaking process. He also asked that the DMA encourage its nonprofit members to use the do not call list. Nonprofit member companies are not required to use the DMA’s telephone suppression file, the Telephone Preference Service. The national list may include consumer preference choices, such as what times they would prefer to be called.
"This would simplify the patchwork of systems now in place," Muris said.
The FTC also plans to address the use of pre-acquired credit card account information to prevent unauthorized charges. "This makes consumers nervous," he said.
An aggressive focus will be placed on deceptive spam. The agency receives 10,000 new pieces of spam every day in an Internet mailbox where consumers can sent unsolicited and deceptive spam to alert the FTC. Some investigations are already underway with announcements on its first set of Spam cases to be made next month, Muris said.
The rapid convergence of the online and offline world was the major factor in initiating this stepped up effort, Muris said.
The agenda also includes:
* Continuing strong enforcement of the telemarketing sales rule
* Increased enforcement of offline and online privacy promises. The FTC plans to seed mailing lists to expose privacy violations and improve the collection and use of complaints about privacy to target cases more efficiently.
* Increase enforcement of the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Childrens’ online Privacy Protection Act. The FTC recently referred its fourth civil penalty action regarding COPPA.
