Online advertising agency DoubleClick’s pledge not to merge names with anonymous user activity across the Web has already begun drawing skeptics.
California lawyer Ira P. Rothken, lead counsel in a lawsuit against the New York-based firm, offered the sharpest criticism of DoubleClick CEO Kevin O’Connor’s statement that his firm would cease such activities until clear privacy standards have been agreed on.
Rothken said O’Connor’s 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.”
While Rothken, whose client Harriet M. Judnick is suing DoubleClick in California’s Superior Court for alleged invasion of privacy and unlawful business practices, applauded the announcement, he said it appeared the firm was “not changing [its] alleged intrusive data collection procedures.”
He noted it appeared to him that “they are only promising not to generate a simple database report to merge the three sets of private data, name address, cookie, clickstream) together on one printout or one screen even though the information resides on their servers.”
DoubleClick’s lawyers offered no comment on the allegations.
In his statement, O’Connor admitted the company’s plan was a “mistake” and pledged that DoubleClick “will not link personally identifiable information to anonymous user activity across Web sites.” (DIRECT Newsline, March 6, 2000)
Meantime, according to published reports, Evan Hendricks, who publishes Privacy Journal, fears DoubleClick’s move could stall industry efforts leading for clear privacy standards.
“By backing down now and doing the right thing, they take a little air out of the balloon, and unfortunately that could slow things down,” he was quoted as saying.
Just the same, the American Advertising Federation praised DoubleClick’s decision to work with consumers, customers and the government to develop broad standards to protect consumer privacy.
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