Obama Calls for Privacy Bill of Rights for Online Consumers
The Obama administration today asked Congress to pass legislation to protect online consumers’ privacy.
“The administration urges Congress to enact a ‘consumer privacy bill of rights’ to provide baseline consumer data privacy protections,” Lawrence Strickling, assistant secretary for communications and information at the Commerce Department, said in written testimony to the Senate Commerce Committee.
Strickling said legislation should provide the Federal Trade Commission with the authority to enforce privacy protections. He did not specify the “baseline” protections, but said the Obama administration is ready to work with Congress to define them.
In a December report on privacy issues, the FTC recommended a do-not-track option to allow consumers to opt out of having their Web browsing history monitored for marketing purposes and pressed advertisers to make their data practices more transparent.
The U.S. market for targeted online advertising, some of which relies on placing digital sensors called cookies on computers, may grow 21 percent to $1.35 billion this year from $1.12 billion in 2010, according to EMarketer Inc., a research company based in New York.
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) voluntarily added do-not-track features to its Internet Explorer 9 browser, which it released yesterday.
“What industry needs is federal privacy legislation that sets forth baseline privacy protections for transparency, consumer control and security that are not specific to any one technology, industry or business model,” Erich Andersen, Microsoft’s deputy general counsel, said in testimony to the Senate committee.
Google Inc. (GOOG), owner of the world’s largest search engine, released a tool that helps users of its Chrome Web browser keep advertisers from monitoring their Web-surfing habits.
To contact the reporter on this story: Eric Engleman in Washington at eengleman1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Allan Holmes at aholmes25@bloomberg.net
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