Online Industry Offers Self-Regulatory Guidelines
A consortium of major Internet advertisers and advertising companies unveiled a package of self-regulatory guidelines Monday at a Federal Trade Commission-Commerce Department workshop on profiling designed to ease government and consumer concerns about how they collect and use data to reach potential customers.
Profiling involves the collection and analysis of data about where potential customers go online, what they buy and the types of advertisements they show and interest in.
At the same time the Direct Marketing Association said through Jerry Cerasale, its senior vice president, government affairs, that it will begin requiring its members to notify visitors to their Web sites when they collect data about them, what it includes and how they intend to use it.
FTC chairman Robert Pitofsky, opening the workshop held at the Commerce Department’s headquarters, said the practice “can be troubling and merits careful examination” by regulators because consumers often have little idea that Web site banner ads can be used to track their Web surfing habits.
“If Web firms fail to protect consumers’ privacy, if they fail to disclose, if they fail to give consumers a choice, I guarantee you, government will be forced to step in,” commerce secretary William M. Daley added.
Members of the Network Advertising Initiative (NIA), which includes 10 of the largest advertisers and direct marketing companies on the Internet, have agreed to ensure that online firms fully explain the types of information they collect and use. They also agreed to provide Web site visitors who view their ads with a way of opting out from disclosing their personal data, such as name, address, telephone number, and other identifiers.
Commerce and FTC officials said that Elizabeth Wang, general counsel of DoubleClick, noted that her company has heard consumer concerns and is committed to addressing them. DoubleClick is a consortium member selling ads to more than 1,400 Internet sites.
Cerasale, indirectly supporting the NIA’s guidelines said Web site advertisers and ad servers “need to provide effective privacy notices that will give individuals a clear understanding what type of information is being collected and what it is being used for.”
Besides providing Web site visitors with a way of opting out from having information about them from being collected, Cerasale said that Web sites using third party ad servers to independently collect visitor information should not only identify themselves but provide consumers with a way of contacting them.
But privacy advocates, such as Evan Hendricks, editor and publisher of Privacy Times, Jason Catlett, president of Junkbusters, and Deirdre Mulligan, staff counsel of the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology, urged the FTC to prohibit profiling at least until there are new personal privacy protection laws
While Hendricks gave the NIA’s guidelines poor marks, Catlett said allowing Web advertisers to continue collecting information about Web site visitors would cause “irreparable damage” to personal privacy and Mulligan added that people “should be given greater control over the use of personal information for privacy to be protected in the future.”
