What is a browser?

Relying on your privacy policy to give user’s notice and choice? Watch this video where 50 people in Times Square were asked “What is a browser?” It’s not exactly a scientific study, but you get the point about the communication challenges involved if reading a page about browsers, cookies and IP addresses is supposed to ensure that users understand behavioral advertising. We also have to keep in mind that you and I and our Beltway, Silicon Alley and Silicon Valley friends are not representative of the mass Web audience. Heck – some of us are even befuddled when challenged to go beyond email, browsing or signing up for Facebook.

That brings us to tomorrow, when two House Energy and Commerce Subcommittees will hold a joint hearing on behavioral advertising. When I first testified before the Senate Commerce Committee on this very issue almost a decade ago, I wasn’t quite sure the Members clearly understood the technologies and business models we were discussing. It will be interesting to see how congressional fluency in this area has progressed. Subcommittee Chairman Boucher and his staff have spent a great deal of time on this issue, hearing from companies, advocates and trade groups and seem to be well up to speed. My former colleague from local Brooklyn politics, Anthony Weiner, is quite tech savvy and had some smart points to make at the recent ISP focused committee hearing. Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman also seems interested in the issue and even has the Chief Privacy Officer of the Federal Trade Commission detailed to his committee to support privacy efforts. So I do hope for a savvier and more engaging discussion this time around.

Will the companies presenting have much more to say than I did nearly a decade ago? Have practices progressed much further than the commitments made in those early days? I will be twittering from the hearing, so follow me there or at the Twitter box on this site for live updates.