|
U.S. PIRG Consumer Blog
« OMBWatch has summary of CPSC reforms |
Main
| Worried about student loan availability? Don't be. »
August 12, 2008
House web privacy investigation: tracking without consent
The House Energy and Commerce Committee is posting responses of major and minor Internet companies -- from Google and Verizon to CBeyond and Suddenlink -- to its Internet data collection privacy inquiries led by its senior leadership, including Chairman John Dingell (D-MI), Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) and privacy hawks Ed Markey (D-MA) and Joe Barton (R-TX). As Ellen Nakashima reports in in today's Washington Post, Some Web Firms Say They Track Behavior Without Explicit Consent: The revelations came in response to a bipartisan inquiry of how more than 30 Internet companies might have gathered data to target customers. Some privacy advocates and lawmakers said the disclosures help build a case for an overarching online-privacy law. She goes on to quote our colleague Jeff Chester:
"Google is slowly embracing a full-blown behavioral targeting over its vast network of services and sites," said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. He said that Google, through its vast data collection and sophisticated data analysis tools, "knows more about consumers than practically anyone." Follow the link to his website for more details. My previous blog on deep packet inspection and Nebuad.
Posted by Ed Mierzwinski at August 12, 2008 09:40 AM
Post a comment
|
