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U.S. PIRG Consumer Blog
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July 24, 2007
Web companies responding slowly, weakly, to threat of privacy rules
In the fall, U.S. PIRG and the Center for Digital Democracy filed a broad-ranging FTC complaint calling for an immediate, formal investigation of online advertising practices and their impact on consumer privacy. The FTC has recently replied to us that it will hold a "public workshop" to review the issues we raised. Then, in April, U.S. PIRG, Center for Digital Democracy and EPIC filed an FTC complaint challenging the merger of Google and DoubleClick. That filing urged the FTC to consider the effects of the information collection regime that the merger creates.
Since our complaints, interest in on-line privacy has surged. Congress will hold hearings (Marketwatch story). And, as Ellen Nakashima reports in today's Washington Post:
Online search companies Google, Yahoo, Ask.com and Microsoft are tightening their privacy policies in the face of mounting public, congressional and regulatory agency concern about the vast amounts of personal data they gather and store. The companies have basically placed time limits on data retention in an attempt to inoculate themselves against further regulation. It's a first step, but quite modest. We expect, and anticipate, a lot more. While the press talks excitedly about the latest social networking and other interactive Internet applications as Web 2.0, the combined search and advertising models on the web today are already at No More Privacy 10.0.
Posted by Ed Mierzwinski at July 24, 2007 05:40 PM
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