Double Dutch: Critics blast DoubleClick privacy pledge
Although Internet advertising services firm DoubleClick Inc. said last month that it would scrap a plan to merge potentially sensitive consumer data with anonymous user activity across the Web, it’s failed to impress critics.
Five public interest groups are pressing the Federal Trade Commission to immediately block the embattled New York company from linking its online and offline data without consumers’ permission.
Besides a federal court order against DoubleClick, the five groups are asking the FTC to obtain court orders imposing similar prohibitions against other yet-to-be named online operations. The groups are the Center for Democracy and Technology; Privacy Rights Clearinghouse; Consumer Action; the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation; and the American Civil Liberties Union.
The lawyer in the class-action suit against DoubleClick also blasted a recent announcement by company CEO Kevin O’Connor.
The statement “appears to be strategically ambiguous and leaves open the door for the current imminent combination of an Internet user’s name and address with their clickstream information,” said Ira P. Rothken in an interview. Rothken is the attorney for Harriet M. Judnick, who is suing DoubleClick in California’s Superior Court for alleged invasion of privacy and unlawful business practices.
“They are only promising not to generate a simple database report to merge the sets of private data – name/address, cookie, clickstream – together on one printout or one screen, even though the information resides on their servers,” he continued.
Despite these attacks, the firm is trying to ride out the storm.
It has named New York City Consumer Affairs Commissioner Jules Polonetsky to the newly created position of chief privacy officer. It’s also tapped former New York State Attorney General Robert Abrams as chair of its privacy advisory board.
DoubleClick said the chief privacy officer will serve as an ombudsman for Internet users, working with clients to institute and police their privacy policies and to educate the public about the company’s commitment to online privacy. Polonetsky will report to DoubleClick’s board of directors.
Abrams will head an independent board of outside experts on Internet privacy, security and online ethics, the company said. Both Abrams and the board will make recommendations to DoubleClick regarding policies aimed at protecting consumers’ online privacy.
In the announcement, O’Connor pledged that DoubleClick “will not link personally identifiable information to anonymous user activity across Web sites,” and that a plan to do so was “a mistake.”
