IP: FTC Privacy Initiative

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

From: Lewis Rose <lewrose () arentfox com>


        The US Federal Trade Commission has launched a "Privacy Initiative"
to investigate whether the information collected at websites (either that
affirmatively submitted by a visitor via a form or information collected
based upon a visitor's selection of pages at a site to reflect personal
interests) should be the subject of regulation by the FTC.  To get
background on this effort, you may want to read a speech by FTC Commissioner
Varney on Electronic Commerce and Privacy which is available at the FTC's
site under speeches (www.ftc.gov) or the Advertising Law Internet Site
(www.webcom.com/~lewrose/home.html) under speeches.


This week the staff of the FTC established a mailing list to allow
interested parties to discuss the issues surrounding the privacy interests
of consumers visiting web sites.  To subscribe, send the message "subscribe"
(without the quotes) to privacy-request () ftc gov   I suspect most of the
participants will not represent the internet marketing community and urge
interested members of this list to subscribe and participate.  So far, there
have been only two posts-- one by me yesterday wondering why marketers on
the internet should be treated any differently than marketers using more
traditional media, followed by one post simply asserting that internet
marketing privacy issues are completely different from those raised by
traditional media.


Lew




Lewis Rose                           202-857-6012 (voice)
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